Quasistatic Contraction of Magnetic Protostars due to Magnetic Flux Leakage

Extract

A protostar with sufficient magnetic flux can be in quasistatic equilibrium. The structure at the time t of such an axisymmetric protostar immersed in a medium of finite pressure is determined when the mass m(ϕ, t) in each axisymmetric magnetic tube with the flux ϕ is given. A new distribution m(ϕ, t+δt) is found by calculating the amount of matter which crosses the surface of the magnetic tube ϕ in a time δt due to plasma drift (ambipolar diffusion), and then the structure at t+δt is determined. By repeating this procedure we can follow the quasistatic contraction of a protostar. Here we take into account the effect of charged grains in addition to ions upon the plasma drift.