The evolution of protoplanetary discs in star formation and feedback simulations

TL;DR

This study combines star formation simulations with disc evolution models to assess how external photoevaporation affects protoplanetary discs, revealing that shielding by star-forming material temporarily protects some discs, influencing planet formation potential.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled simulation approach to evaluate the impact of shielding on disc evolution in massive star-forming regions, highlighting the importance of shielding duration and cluster age.

Findings

Shielding occurs in a small fraction of discs, lasting less than 0.5 Myr.

Most discs in a 2 Myr environment experience strong external photoevaporation.

Shielding can preserve solid mass for terrestrial planet formation.

Abstract

We couple star cluster formation and feedback simulations of a Carina-like star forming region with 1D disc evolutionary models to study the impact of external photoevaporation on disc populations in massive star forming regions. To investigate the effect of shielding of young stellar objects by star forming material, we track the FUV field history at each star in the cluster with two methods: i) Monte Carlo radiative transfer accounting for the shielding of stars from the FUV by the star forming cloud ii) Geometric dilution of the radiation from other stars which ignores shielding effects. We found that significant shielding only occurs for a small fraction of discs and offers protection from external photoevaporation for < 0.5 Myr. However, this initial protection can prevent significant early gas/dust mass loss and disc radius reduction due to external photoevaporation. Particularly, shielding for 0.5 Myr is sufficient for much of the solid reservoir to evolve to larger sizes where it will not be entrained in an external wind. Shielding is therefore potentially significant for terrestrial planet formation in retaining the solid mass budget, but the continued stripping of gas when shielding ends could still impact migration and the gas reservoir for giant planet atmospheres. Our models highlight issues with treating all discs in a cluster with a single characteristic age, since shielded objects are typically only the youngest. Our model predicts that the majority of discs in a 2 Myr Carina-like environment are subject to strong external photoevaporation.