Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 708, Issue 2, Pages 1585-1597Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/708/2/1585
Keywords
accretion, accretion disks; binaries: general; stars: formation; stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs
Categories
Funding
- Ontario Early Research Award
- NSERC Canada
- NASA
- National Science Foundation [AST-0807739, AST-908553, PHY05-51164]
- US Department of Energy [DE-AC52-07NA 27344]
- ATP [NNX09AK31G]
- Canada Foundation for Innovation
- Ontario Innovation Trust
- Ontario Research Fund
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [0908553] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We study rapidly accreting, gravitationally unstable disks with a series of idealized global, numerical experiments using the code ORION. Our numerical parameter study focuses on protostellar disks, showing that one can predict disk behavior and the multiplicity of the accreting star system as a function of two dimensionless parameters which compare the infall rate to the disk sound speed and orbital period. Although gravitational instabilities become strong, we find that fragmentation into binary or multiple systems occurs only when material falls in several times more rapidly than the canonical isothermal limit. The disk-to-star accretion rate is proportional to the infall rate and governed by gravitational torques generated by low-m spiral modes. We also confirm the existence of a maximum stable disk mass: disks that exceed similar to 50% of the total system mass are subject to fragmentation and the subsequent formation of binary companions.
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