The collapse to equilibrium of rotating, adiabatic spheroids. I - Protostars
Abstract
The role played by rotation during protostellar gas cloud dynamic collapse is examined, under the assumptions that the cloud conserves angular momentum and evolves along a fixed adiabat. From the knowledge of the cloud's initial ratio of thermal to gravitational energy, and the initial ratio of rotational to gravitational energy, the analytical model presented can predict the final radius, density, temperature, and rate of rotation of the protostellar cloud for a given adiabatic exponent of the gas. The analytic model also explains, on physical grounds, how a rotating gas cloud's evolution will change if initial parameters are varied or the adiabatic exponent of the gas is changed. The model predicts, from initial conditions alone, when a protostellar object will fragment into a multiple stellar system.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- September 1981
- DOI:
- 10.1086/159196
- Bibcode:
- 1981ApJ...248..717T
- Keywords:
-
- Gravitational Collapse;
- Nebulae;
- Protostars;
- Rotating Fluids;
- Stellar Evolution;
- Stellar Gravitation;
- Adiabatic Conditions;
- Angular Velocity;
- Equilibrium Equations;
- Spheroids;
- Stellar Models;
- Astrophysics