Effects of radiation transfer on the structure of self-gravitating disks, their fragmentation and evolution of the fragments

TL;DR

This study combines analytical models and 3D radiation hydrodynamics simulations to explore how non-local radiative transfer influences the structure, fragmentation, and evolution of self-gravitating disks around stars.

Contribution

It demonstrates that non-local radiative transfer significantly affects disk temperature and structure, challenging the sufficiency of traditional fragmentation criteria.

Findings

Disk temperature is governed by non-local radiative transfer.

Fragmentation does not always occur even when cooling criteria are met.

Minimum initial mass of fragments is about a few Jupiter masses.

Abstract

We investigate structure of self-gravitating disks, their fragmentation and evolution of the fragments (the clumps) using both analytic approach and three-dimensional radiation hydrodynamics simulations starting from molecular cores. The simulations show that non-local radiative transfer determines disk temperature. We find the disk structure is well described by an analytical model of quasi-steady self-gravitating disk with radial radiative transfer. Because the radiative process is not local and radiation from the interstellar medium cannot be ignored, the local radiative cooling would not be balanced with the viscous heating in a massive disk around a low mass star. In our simulations, there are cases in which the disk does not fragment even though it satisfies the fragmentation criterion based on disk cooling time ($Q \sim 1$ and $\Omega t_{\rm cool}\sim 1$). This indicates that at least the criterion is not sufficient condition for fragmentation. We determine the parameter range for the host cloud core in which disk fragmentation occurs. In addition, we show that the temperature evolution of the center of the clump is close to that of typical first cores and the minimum initial mass of clumps to be about a few Jupiter mass.