Forgan, DH, Ilee, JD orcid.org/0000-0003-1008-1142, Cyganowski, CJ et al. (2 more authors) (2016) Self-gravitating disc candidates around massive young stars. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 463 (1). pp. 957-964. ISSN 0035-8711
Abstract
There have been several recent detections of candidate Keplerian discs around massive young protostars. Given the relatively large disc-to-star mass ratios in these systems, and their young ages, it is worth investigating their propensity to becoming self-gravitating. To this end, we compute self-consistent, semi-analytic models of putative self-gravitating discs for five candidate disc systems. Our aim is not to fit exactly the observations, but to demonstrate that the expected dust continuum emission from marginally unstable self-gravitating discs can be quite weak, due to high optical depth at the mid-plane even at millimetre wavelengths. In the best cases, the models produce ‘observable’ disc masses within a factor of <1.5 of those observed, with mid-plane dust temperatures comparable to measured temperatures from molecular line emission. We find in two cases that a self-gravitating disc model compares well with observations. If these discs are self-gravitating, they satisfy the conditions for disc fragmentation in their outer regions. These systems may hence have as-yet-unresolved low-mass stellar companions, and are thus promising targets for future high angular resolution observations.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | stars: formation, stars: massive, stars: pre-main-sequence, stars: protostars, radio continuum: stars, submillimetre: stars |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences (Leeds) > School of Physics and Astronomy (Leeds) > Astrophysics (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 Nov 2018 13:45 |
Last Modified: | 22 Nov 2018 13:45 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/mnras/stw1917 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:138975 |