Cardiff University | Prifysgol Caerdydd ORCA
Online Research @ Cardiff 
WelshClear Cookie - decide language by browser settings

Gravitational fragmentation and the formation of brown dwarfs in stellar clusters

Bonnell, Ian A., Clark, Paul ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4834-043X and Bate, Matthew R. 2008. Gravitational fragmentation and the formation of brown dwarfs in stellar clusters. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 389 (4) , pp. 1556-1562. 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2008.13679.x

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

We investigate the formation of brown dwarfs and very low mass stars through the gravitational fragmentation of infalling gas into stellar clusters. The gravitational potential of a forming stellar cluster provides the focus that attracts gas from the surrounding molecular cloud. Structures present in the gas grow, forming filaments flowing into the cluster centre. These filaments attain high gas densities due to the combination of the cluster potential and local self-gravity. The resultant Jeans masses are low, allowing the formation of very low mass fragments. The tidal shear and high-velocity dispersion present in the cluster preclude any subsequent accretion, thus resulting in the formation of brown dwarfs or very low mass stars. Ejections are not required as the brown dwarfs enter the cluster with high relative velocities, suggesting that their disc and binary properties should be similar to that of low-mass stars. This mechanism requires the presence of a strong gravitational potential due to the stellar cluster implying that brown-dwarf formation should be more frequent in stellar clusters than in distributed populations of young stars. Brown dwarfs formed in isolation would require another formation mechanism such as due to turbulent fragmentation.

Item Type: Article
Date Type: Publication
Status: Published
Schools: Physics and Astronomy
Subjects: Q Science > QB Astronomy
Uncontrolled Keywords: stars: formation; stars: low-mass, brown dwarfs; stars: luminosity function, mass function; ISM: clouds; globular clusters: general
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISSN: 0035-8711
Last Modified: 25 Oct 2022 09:45
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/59858

Citation Data

Cited 115 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item Edit Item