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Fragmentation in Rotating Isothermal Protostellar Clouds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

P. Bodenheimer ,
J. E. Tohline  and
D. C. Black
P. Bodenheimer
Affiliation:
Lick Observatory
J. E. Tohline
Affiliation:
Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory
D. C. Black
Affiliation:
Space Science Division, Ames Research Center, NASA

Extract

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In this paper we report briefly the results of an extensive set of 3-D hydrodynamic calculations that have been performed during the past two and one-half years to investigate the susceptibility of rotating clouds to gravitational fragmentation. Because of the immensity of parameter space and the expense of computations, we have chosen to restrict this investigation to strictly isothermal collapse sequences. Isothermality is, fortunately, a fairly accurate description of the optically thin phases of collapse of protostellar clouds: a one solar mass, Jeans unstable interstellar cloud, having a temperature of 10 K and density ~ 106 particles/cm3, for example, will collapse isothermally through about 6 orders of magnitude in density before heating up significantly (Gerola and Glassgold, 1978). The assumption also applies to protogalactic clouds (Silk, 1977). The results, therefore, should add specifically to our understanding of the dynamics of the earliest phases in a protostellar (or protogalactic) cloud’s evolution. A much more complete discussion of these calculations can be found in Bodenheimer, Tohline and Black (1980), hereafter referred to as BTB.

Type
I. ID, 2D, and 3D Collapse of Interstellar Clouds
Information
International Astronomical Union Colloquium , Volume 58: Stellar Hydrodynamics , August 1980 , pp. 247 - 253
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1980

References

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