Star-disk alignment in the protoplanetary disks: SPH simulation of the collapse of turbulent molecular cloud cores [EPA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2001.05456


We perform a series of three-dimensional smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations to study the evolution of the angle between the protostellar spin and the protoplanetary disk rotation axes (the star-disk angle $\psi_{\rm sd}$) in turbulent molecular cloud cores. While $\psi_{\rm sd}$ at the protostar formation epoch exhibits broad distribution up to $\sim 130^{\circ}$, $\psi_{\rm sd}$ decreases ($\lesssim 20^{\circ}$) in a timescale of $\sim 10^{4}$ yr. This timescale of the star-disk alignment, $t_{\rm alignment}$, corresponds basically to the mass doubling time of the central protostar, in which the protostar forgets its initial spin direction due to the mass accretion from the disk. Values of $\psi_{\rm sd}$ both at $t=10^2$ yr and $t=10^5$ yr after the protostar formation are independent of the ratios of thermal and turbulent energies to gravitational energy of the initial cloud cores: $\alpha=E_{\rm thermal}/|E_{\rm gravity}|$ and $\gamma_{\rm turb}=E_{\rm turbulence}/|E_{\rm gravity}|$. We also find that a warped disk is possibly formed by the turbulent accretion flow from the circumstellar envelope.

Read this paper on arXiv…

D. Takaishi, Y. Tsukamoto and Y. Suto
Thu, 16 Jan 20
28/46

Comments: Accepted for publication in MNRAS (16 pages, 16 figures, 2 tables)