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  1. ABSTRACT

    Protoplanetary discs spend their lives in the dense environment of a star-forming region. While there, they can be affected by nearby stars through external photoevaporation and dynamic truncations. We present simulations that use the amuse framework to couple the torch model for star cluster formation from a molecular cloud with a model for the evolution of protoplanetary discs under these two environmental processes. We compare simulations with and without extinction of photoevaporation-driving radiation. We find that the majority of discs in our simulations are considerably shielded from photoevaporation-driving radiation for at least 0.5 Myr after the formation of the first massive stars. Radiation shielding increases disc lifetimes by an order of magnitude and can let a disc retain more solid material for planet formation. The reduction in external photoevaporation leaves discs larger and more easily dynamically truncated, although external photoevaporation remains the dominant mass-loss process. Finally, we find that the correlation between disc mass and projected distance to the most massive nearby star (often interpreted as a sign of external photoevaporation) can be erased by the presence of less massive stars that dominate their local radiation field. Overall, we find that the presence and dynamics of gas in embedded clusters with massive stars is important for the evolution of protoplanetary discs.

     
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  2. ABSTRACT

    We perform simulations of star cluster formation to investigate the morphological evolution of embedded star clusters in the earliest stages of their evolution. We conduct our simulations with Torch, which uses the Amuse framework to couple state-of-the-art stellar dynamics to star formation, radiation, stellar winds, and hydrodynamics in Flash. We simulate a suite of 104 M⊙ clouds at 0.0683 pc resolution for ∼2 Myr after the onset of star formation, with virial parameters α = 0.8, 2.0, 4.0 and different random samplings of the stellar initial mass function and prescriptions for primordial binaries. Our simulations result in a population of embedded clusters with realistic morphologies (sizes, densities, and ellipticities) that reproduce the known trend of clouds with higher initial α having lower star formation efficiencies. Our key results are as follows: (1) Cluster mass growth is not monotonic, and clusters can lose up to half of their mass while they are embedded. (2) Cluster morphology is not correlated with cluster mass and changes over ∼0.01 Myr time-scales. (3) The morphology of an embedded cluster is not indicative of its long-term evolution but only of its recent history: radius and ellipticity increase sharply when a cluster accretes stars. (4) The dynamical evolution of very young embedded clusters with masses ≲1000 M⊙ is dominated by the overall gravitational potential of the star-forming region rather than by internal dynamical processes such as two- or few-body relaxation.

     
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  3. Abstract

    Feedback from massive stars plays an important role in the formation of star clusters. Whether a very massive star is born early or late in the cluster formation timeline has profound implications for the star cluster formation and assembly processes. We carry out a controlled experiment to characterize the effects of early-forming massive stars on star cluster formation. We use the star formation software suiteTorch, combining self-gravitating magnetohydrodynamics, ray-tracing radiative transfer,N-body dynamics, and stellar feedback, to model four initially identical 104Mgiant molecular clouds with a Gaussian density profile peaking at 521.5 cm−3. Using theTorchsoftware suite through theAMUSEframework, we modify three of the models, to ensure that the first star that forms is very massive (50, 70, and 100M). Early-forming massive stars disrupt the natal gas structure, resulting in fast evacuation of the gas from the star-forming region. The star formation rate is suppressed, reducing the total mass of the stars formed. Our fiducial control model, without an early massive star, has a larger star formation rate and total efficiency by up to a factor of 3, and a higher average star formation efficiency per freefall time by up to a factor of 7. Early-forming massive stars promote the buildup of spatially separate and gravitationally unbound subclusters, while the control model forms a single massive cluster.

     
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  4. null (Ed.)
    ABSTRACT The fraction of stars in binary systems within star clusters is important for their evolution, but what proportion of binaries form by dynamical processes after initial stellar accretion remains unknown. In previous work, we showed that dynamical interactions alone produced too few low-mass binaries compared to observations. We therefore implement an initial population of binaries in the coupled magnetohydrodynamics and direct N-body star cluster formation code torch. We compare simulations with, and without, initial binary populations and follow the dynamical evolution of the binary population in both sets of simulations, finding that both dynamical formation and destruction of binaries take place. Even in the first few million years of star formation, we find that an initial population of binaries is needed at all masses to reproduce observed binary fractions for binaries with mass ratios above the q ≥ 0.1 detection limit. Our simulations also indicate that dynamical interactions in the presence of gas during cluster formation modify the initial distributions towards binaries with smaller primary masses, larger mass ratios, smaller semimajor axes and larger eccentricities. Systems formed dynamically do not have the same properties as the initial systems, and systems formed dynamically in the presence of an initial population of binaries differ from those formed in simulations with single stars only. Dynamical interactions during the earliest stages of star cluster formation are important for determining the properties of binary star systems. 
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