No Arabic abstract
We present the evolution of rotational directions of circumstellar disks in a triple protostar system simulated from a turbulent molecular cloud core with no magnetic field. We find a new formation pathway of a counter-rotating circumstellar disk in such triple systems. The tertiary protostar forms via the circumbinary disk fragmentation and the initial rotational directions of all the three circumstellar disks are almost parallel to that of the orbital motion of the binary system. Their mutual gravito-hydrodynamical interaction for the subsequent $sim10^4thinspacerm{yr}$ greatly disturbs the orbit of the tertiary, and the rotational directions of the tertiary disk and star are reversed due to the spiral-arm accretion of the circumbinary disk. The counter-rotation of the tertiary circumstellar disk continues to the end of the simulation ($sim6.4times10^4thinspacerm{yr}$ after its formation), implying that the counter-rotating disk is long-lived. This new formation pathway during the disk evolution in Class 0/I Young Stellar Objects possibly explains the counter-rotating disks recently discovered by ALMA.
Binary and multiple star systems are a frequent outcome of the star formation process, and as a result, almost half of all sun-like stars have at least one companion star. Theoretical studies indicate that there are two main pathways that can operate concurrently to form binary/multiple star systems: large scale fragmentation of turbulent gas cores and filaments or smaller scale fragmentation of a massive protostellar disk due to gravitational instability. Observational evidence for turbulent fragmentation on scales of $>$1000~AU has recently emerged. Previous evidence for disk fragmentation was limited to inferences based on the separations of more-evolved pre-main sequence and protostellar multiple systems. The triple protostar system L1448 IRS3B is an ideal candidate to search for evidence of disk fragmentation. L1448 IRS3B is in an early phase of the star formation process, likely less than 150,000 years in age, and all protostars in the system are separated by $<$200~AU. Here we report observations of dust and molecular gas emission that reveal a disk with spiral structure surrounding the three protostars. Two protostars near the center of the disk are separated by 61 AU, and a tertiary protostar is coincident with a spiral arm in the outer disk at a 183 AU separation. The inferred mass of the central pair of protostellar objects is $sim$1 M$_{sun}$, while the disk surrounding the three protostars has a total mass of $sim$0.30 M$_{sun}$. The tertiary protostar itself has a minimum mass of $sim$0.085 M$_{sun}$. We demonstrate that the disk around L1448 IRS3B appears susceptible to disk fragmentation at radii between 150~AU and 320~AU, overlapping with the location of the tertiary protostar. This is consistent with models for a protostellar disk that has recently undergone gravitational instability, spawning one or two companion stars.
Young stars are surrounded by a circumstellar disk of gas and dust, within which planet formation can occur. Gravitational forces in multiple star systems can disrupt the disk. Theoretical models predict that if the disk is misaligned with the orbital plane of the stars, the disk should warp and break into precessing rings, a phenomenon known as disk tearing. We present observations of the triple star system GWOrionis, finding evidence for disk tearing. Our images show an eccentric ring that is misaligned with the orbital planes and the outer disk. The ring casts shadows on a strongly warped intermediate region of the disk. If planets can form within the warped disk, disk tearing could provide a mechanism for forming wide-separation planets on oblique orbits.
While it is generally accepted that the magnetic field and its non-ideal effects play important roles during the stellar formation, simple models of pure hydrodynamics and angular momentum conservation are still widely employed in the studies of disk assemblage in the framework of the so-called alpha-disk model due to their simplicity. There has only been a few efforts trying to bridge the gap between a collapsing prestellar core and a developed disk. The goal of the present work is to revisit the assemblage of the protoplanetary disk (PPD), by performing 3D MHD simulations with ambipolar diffusion and full radiative transfer. We follow the global evolution of the PPD from the prestellar core collapse for 100 kyr, with resolution of one AU. The formed disk is more realistic and is in agreement with recent observations of disks around class-0 young stellar objects. The mass flux arriving onto the disk and the radial mass accretion rate within the disk are measured and compared to analytical self-similar models. The surface mass flux is very centrally peaked, implying that most of the mass falling onto the star does not transit through the mid-plane of the disk. The disk mid-plane is almost dead to turbulence, whereas upper layers and the disk outer edge are very turbulent. The snow-line is significantly further away than in a passive disk. We developed a zoomed rerun technique to quickly obtain a reasonable disk that is highly stratified, weakly magnetized inside, and strongly magnetized outside. During the class-0 phase of PPD formation, the interaction between the disk and the infalling envelope is important and ought not be neglected. Accretion onto the star is found to mostly depend on dynamics of the collapsing envelope, rather than the detailed disk structure.
We present sensitive ALMA observations of TWA 3, a nearby, young ($sim$10 Myr) hierarchical system composed of three pre-main sequence M3--M4.5 stars. For the first time, we detected ${}^{12}$CO and ${}^{13}$CO $J$=2-1 emission from the circumbinary protoplanetary disk around TWA 3A. We jointly fit the protoplanetary disk velocity field, stellar astrometric positions, and stellar radial velocities to infer the architecture of the system. The Aa and Ab stars ($0.29pm0.01,M_odot$ and $0.24pm0.01,M_odot$, respectively) comprising the tight ($P=35$ days) eccentric ($e=0.63pm0.01$) spectroscopic binary are coplanar with their circumbinary disk (misalignment $< 6^{circ}$ with 68% confidence), similar to other short-period binary systems. From models of the spectral energy distribution, we found the inner radius of the circumbinary disk ($r_mathrm{inner} = 0.50 - 0.75$ au) to be consistent with theoretical predictions of dynamical truncation $r_mathrm{cav}/a_mathrm{inner} approx 3$. The outer orbit of the tertiary star B ($0.40pm0.28,M_odot$, $asim65 pm 18$ au, $e=0.3pm0.2$) is not as well constrained as the inner orbit, however, orbits coplanar with the A system are still preferred (misalignment $ < 20^{circ}$). To better understand the influence of the B orbit on the TWA 3A circumbinary disk, we performed SPH simulations of the system and found that the outer edge of the gas disk ($r_mathrm{outer}=8.5pm0.2$ au) is most consistent with truncation from a coplanar, circular or moderately eccentric orbit, supporting the preference from the joint orbital fit.
We analyze the highest-resolution millimeter continuum and near-infrared (NIR) scattered-light images presented to date of the circumbinary disk orbiting V4046 Sgr, a ~20 Myr old actively accreting, close binary T Tauri star system located a mere 72.4 pc from Earth. We observed the disk with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) at 870-micron during Cycle 4, and we analyze these data in conjunction with archival NIR (H band) polarimetric images obtained with SPHERE/IRDIS on the ESO Very Large Telescope. At 0.3 (20 au) resolution, the 870-micron image reveals a marginally resolved ring that peaks at ~32 au and has an extension of ~ 90 au. We infer a lower limit on dust mass of ~ 60.0 M_earth within the 870-micron ring, and confirm that the ring is well aligned with the larger-scale gaseous disk. A second, inner dust ring is also tentatively detected in the ALMA observations; its position appears coincident with the inner (~14 au radius) ring detected in scattered light. Using synthetic 870 micron and H-band images obtained from disk-planet interaction simulations, we attempt to constrain the mass of the putative planet orbiting at 20 au. Our trials suggest that a circumbinary Jovian-mass planet may be responsible for generating the dust ring and gap structures detected within the disk. We discuss the longevity of the gas-rich disk orbiting V4046 Sgr in the context of the binary nature of the system.