Turbulent infall onto class 0 disks as cause of CAI brief condensation episode in the solar system

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to demonstrate that dynamic infall and disk interactions in early star formation can cause brief CAI condensation episodes, explaining their ancient origin and characteristics.

Contribution

It reveals how turbulent infall onto class 0 disks can induce rapid thermal events leading to CAI formation, a novel explanation for their brief condensation history.

Findings

Rapid disk orientation changes due to external streamers.

Warps and spiral waves cause intense heating and sublimation of CAIs.

CAIs in meteorites may originate from last major infall episodes.

Abstract

Calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs) in carbonaceous chondritic meteorites are the oldest relics in the solar system. Notably, their radiogenic age feature a brief (100 kyr) condensation episode. In contrast, the reservoirs of the short-lived isotopes in CAIs, presumably supernovae or asymptotic giant stars, pollutes star-forming regions in giant molecular cloud complexes (GMC) over much longer (Myr) duration. Through a series of numerical simulations, we show here the possibility that, within an extended region (2$\sim$3 AU), nearly all ``pre-solar'' CAI-loaded grains in the infall clouds were sublimated and re-condensed during the early ($ \lesssim 10^5$ yr) infall and formation of class-0 disks. We adopt a set of initial conditions from a previous hydrodynamic simulation of the collapse of GMC and the formation of young stellar clusters. We analyze the evolution of the disk's thermal distribution and dynamical structure resulting from the interaction between circumstellar disks and infalling gas. Our follow-up simulations, with much higher resolution, show significant and rapid changes in the disk orientation and morphology due to the dynamic infall of external streamers. Warps and global spiral density waves commonly appear. They lead to intense dissipation which heats the gas to sufficiently high temperature to sublimate prior-generation CAIs. This solid-to-gas phase transition is followed by subsequent cooling and re-condensation. The CAI contained in the meteorites today could be the relics of the last episode of major infall onto class 0 disks.