Fragmentation of a Molecular Cloud Core versus Fragmentation of the Massive Protoplanetary Disk in the Main Accretion Phase

Abstract

We present three-dimensional numerical simulations on binary formation through fragmentation. The simulations follow gravitational collapse of a molecular cloud core up to growth of the first core by accretion. At the initial stage, the gravity is only slightly dominant over the gas pressure. We made various models by changing initial velocity distribution (rotation speed, rotation law, and bar-mode perturbation). The cloud fragments whenever the cloud rotates sufficiently slowly to allow collapse but faster enough to form a disk before first-core formation. The latter condition is equivalent to Ω₀ t _ff ≳ 0.05, where Ω₀ and t _ff f denote the initial central angular velocity and the freefall time measured from the central density, and the condition is independent of the initial rotation law and bar-mode perturbation. Fragmentation is classified into six types. When the initial cloud rotates rigidly the cloud collapses to form a adiabatic disk supported by rotation. When the bar-mode perturbation is very minor, the disk deforms to a rotating bar, and the bar fragments. Otherwise, the adiabatic disk evolves into a central core surrounded by a circumstellar disk, and the the circumstellar disk fragments. When the initial cloud rotates differentially, the cloud deforms to a ring or bar in the isothermal collapse phase. The ring fragments into free or more cores, while the bar fragments into only two cores. In the latter case, the core merges due to low orbital angular momentum and new satellite cores form in the later stages.