The formation of brown dwarfs and low-mass stars by disc fragmentation
arXiv:0809.5042 · doi:10.1063/1.3099172
Abstract
We suggest that a high proportion of brown dwarfs are formed by gravitational fragmentation of massive, extended discs around Sun-like stars. We argue that such discs should arise frequently, but should be observed infrequently, precisely because they fragment rapidly. By performing an ensemble of radiation-hydrodynamic simulations, we show that such discs typically fragment within a few thousand years to produce mainly brown dwarfs (including planetary-mass brown dwarfs) and low-mass hydrogen-burning stars. Subsequently most of the brown dwarfs are ejected by mutual interactions. We analyse the properties of these objects that form by disc fragmentation, and compare them with observations.
4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the Cool Stars 15 conference
Cited by in corpus (5)
- Planet Migration in Self-Gravitating Discs: Survival of Planets
- Discovery of an M-type Companion to the Herbig Ae Star V1787 Ori
- Continuing to Hide Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Discs with Planets
- Substellar Initial Mass Function of Trumpler 14
- M-dwarf stars in the b294 field from the VISTA Variables in the Vía Láctea (VVV)