Triggered fragmentation in self-gravitating discs: forming fragments at small radii

Abstract

We carry out three dimensional radiation hydrodynamical simulations of gravitationally unstable discs to explore the movement of mass in a disc following its initial fragmentation. We find that the radial velocity of the gas in some parts of the disc increases by up to a factor of approximately 10 after the disc fragments, compared to before. While the movement of mass occurs in both the inward and outward directions, the inwards movement can cause the inner spirals of a self-gravitating disc to become sufficiently dense such that they can potentially fragment. This suggests that the dynamical behaviour of fragmented discs may cause subsequent fragmentation to occur at smaller radii than initially expected, but only after an initial fragment has formed in the outer disc.

11 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS. Movies of Simulation 1 available at www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~fmeru/Movies/mass_movement_sigma.mov and www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~fmeru/Movies/mass_movement_vR.mov

References in corpus (16)

• Direct Imaging of Multiple Planets Orbiting the Star HR 8799
• Optical Images of an Exosolar Planet 25 Light Years from Earth
• SPLASH: An interactive visualisation tool for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics simulations
• The Burst Mode of Protostellar Accretion
• The properties of brown dwarfs and low-mass hydrogen-burning stars formed by disc fragmentation
• The Two Modes of Gas Giant Planet Formation
• The impact of magnetic fields on single and binary star formation
• Direct Imaging and Spectroscopy of a Planetary Mass Candidate Companion to a Young Solar Analog
• Global Models for the Evolution of Embedded, Accreting Protostellar Disks
• Simulations of star formation in a gaseous disc around sgr A* - a failed AGN
• Brown dwarf formation by gravitational fragmentation of massive, extended protostellar discs
• The minimum mass for star formation, and the origin of binary brown dwarfs
• Properties of gravitoturbulent accretion disks
• On the gap-opening criterion of migrating planets in protoplanetary disks
• The Formation of Uranus & Neptune: Challenges and Implications For Intermediate-Mass Exoplanets
• On the evolution of multiple low mass planets embedded in a circumbinary disc

Cited by in corpus (28)

• On the existence of accretion-driven bursts in massive star formation
• Towards a population synthesis model of self-gravitating disc fragmentation and tidal downsizing II: The effect of fragment-fragment interactions
• Forming spectroscopic massive proto-binaries by disk fragmentation
• On the origin of the spiral morphology in the Elias 2-27 circumstellar disc
• Convergence of the critical cooling rate for protoplanetary disk fragmentation achieved; the key role of numerical dissipation of angular momentum
• Supermassive black hole pairs in clumpy galaxies at high redshift: delayed binary formation and concurrent mass growth
• Circumplanetary disks around young giant planets: a comparison between core-accretion and disk instability
• Grand challenges in protoplanetary disc modelling
• Gravitational fragmentation and formation of giant protoplanets on tens-of-au orbits
• Disc formation and fragmentation using radiative non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics
• Gravitoviscous protoplanetary disks with a dust component. I. The importance of the inner sub-au region
• Are Elias 2-27's spiral arms driven by self-gravity, or by a companion? A comparative spiral morphology study
• Formation of intermediate-mass planets via magnetically-controlled disk fragmentation
• Ultraharmonics and Secondary Spiral Wakes Induced by a Planet
• The Effect of Protoplanetary Disk Cooling Times on the Formation of Gas Giant Planets by Gravitational Instability
• Far and extreme ultraviolet radiation fields and consequent disc destruction in star-forming regions
• Fragmentation of Kozai-Lidov Disks
• Binary companions triggering fragmentation in self-gravitating discs
• Thermal evolution of protoplanetary disks: from $\beta$-cooling to decoupled gas and dust temperatures
• The evolution of self-gravitating accretion discs
• Spirals and clumps in V960 Mon: signs of planet formation via gravitational instability around an FU Ori star?
• The evolution of circumstellar discs in the Galactic Centre: an application to the G-clouds
• Hiding Signatures of Gravitational Instability in Protoplanetary Discs with Planets
• Direct detection of precursors of gas giants formed by gravitational instability with the Atacama Large Millimetre/sub-millimetre Array
• Effects of disc asymmetries on astrometric measurements - Can they mimic planets?
• Modeling Circumstellar Disc Fragmentation and Episodic Protostellar Accretion with Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics in Cell
• Planets, debris and their host metallicity correlations
• Structure of radiation dominated gravitoturbulent quasar discs