The role of turbulent magnetic reconnection on the formation of rotationally supported protostellar disks

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates through 3D MHD simulations that turbulent magnetic reconnection effectively removes magnetic flux during protostellar disk formation, enabling the creation of rotationally supported disks without relying on enhanced resistivity.

Contribution

It introduces magnetic reconnection as a natural, efficient flux removal mechanism in turbulent environments, challenging the reliance on ambipolar diffusion and resistivity enhancements in star formation models.

Findings

Magnetic reconnection efficiently transports magnetic flux outward during disk formation.

Formation of ~100 AU rotationally supported disks is facilitated by reconnection.

Reconnection mechanism reduces the need for increased resistivity in models.

Abstract

The formation of protostellar disks out of molecular cloud cores is still not fully understood. Under ideal MHD conditions, the removal of angular momentum from the disk progenitor by the typically embedded magnetic field may prevent the formation of a rotationally supported disk during the main protostellar accretion phase of low mass stars. This has been known as the magnetic braking problem and the most investigated mechanism to alleviate this problem and help removing the excess of magnetic flux during the star formation process, the so called ambipolar diffusion (AD), has been shown to be not sufficient to weaken the magnetic braking at least at this stage of the disk formation. In this work, motivated by recent progress in the understanding of magnetic reconnection in turbulent environments, we appeal to the diffusion of magnetic field mediated by magnetic reconnection as an alternative mechanism for removing magnetic flux. We investigate numerically this mechanism during the later phases of the protostellar disk formation and show its high efficiency. By means 3D MHD simulations, we show that this mechanism is able to transport magnetic flux to the outskirts of the disk progenitor at time scales compatible with the collapse, allowing the formation of a rotationally supported disk around the protostar of dimensions ~100 AU. Since MHD turbulence is expected to be present in protostellar disks, this is a natural mechanism for removing magnetic flux excess and allowing the formation of these disks. This mechanism dismiss the necessity of postulating a hypothetical increase of the Ohmic resistivity as discussed in the literature. Together with our earlier work which showed that magnetic flux removal from molecular cloud cores is very efficient, this work calls for reconsidering the relative role of AD for the processes of star and planet formation.