The evolution of self-gravitating accretion discs

Abstract

It is quite likely that self-gravity will play an important role in the evolution of accretion discs, in particular those around young stars, and those around supermassive black holes. We summarise, here, our current understanding of the evolution of such discs, focussing more on discs in young stellar system, than on discs in active galactic nuclei. We consider the conditions under which such discs may fragment to form bound objects, and when they might, instead, be expected to settle into a quasi-steady, self-regulated state. We also discuss how this understanding may depend on the mass of the disc relative to the mass of the central object, and how it might depend on the presence of external irradiation. Additionally, we consider whether or not fragmentation might be stochastic, where we might expect it to occur in an actual protostellar disc, and if there is any evidence for fragmentation actually playing a role in the formation of planetary-mass bodies. Although there are still a number of outstanding issue, such as the convergence of simulations of self-gravitating discs, whether or not there is more than one mode of fragmentation, and quite what role self-gravitating discs may play in the planet formation process, our general understanding of these systems seems quite robust.

12 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in PASA as part of the special issue on "Disc dynamics and planet formation"

References in corpus (18)

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Cited by in corpus (16)

• Spiral Density Waves in a Young Protoplanetary Disk
• Towards a population synthesis model of self-gravitating disc fragmentation and tidal downsizing II: The effect of fragment-fragment interactions
• Constraints from Dust Mass and Mass Accretion Rate Measurements on Angular Momentum Transport in Protoplanetary Disks
• Spiral Arms and a Massive Dust Disk with non-Keplerian Kinematics: Possible Evidence for Gravitational Instability in the Disk of Elias 2-27
• Test of the Formation mechanism of the Broad Line Region in Active Galactic Nuclei
• Characterizing gravito-turbulence in 3D: turbulent properties and stability against fragmentation
• Making Planet Nine: A Scattered Giant in the Outer Solar System
• On the fragmentation boundary in magnetised self-gravitating discs
• Constraining planet formation around 6$M_{\odot }$-8$M_{\odot }$ stars
• The impact of numerical oversteepening on the fragmentation boundary in self-gravitating disks
• Magnetic disk winds in protoplanetary disks: Description of the model and impact on global disk evolution
• The link between infall location, early disc size, and the fraction of self-gravitationally fragmenting discs
• Turbulent gas accretion between supermassive black holes and star-forming rings in the circumnuclear disk
• Closing the gap to convergence of gravitoturbulence in local simulations
• Structure of radiation dominated gravitoturbulent quasar discs
• Clumpy shocks as the driver of velocity dispersion in molecular clouds: the effects of self-gravity and magnetic fields