event
Thursday 08 Dec 2016: Revisiting the pre-main sequence evolution of stars: Importance of accretion efficiency and deuterium abundance
Dr. Masanobu Kunitomo - Nagoya University
Physics, 4th Floor 14:00-15:00
Recent theoretical work has shown that the pre-main sequence (PMS) evolution of stars is much more complex than previously envisioned: Instead of the traditional one-dimensional solution of the contraction of a spherically symmetric gaseous envelope, protostars grow from the first formation of a small seed and subsequent accretion of material. This material is shocked, accretion may be episodic and not necessarily symmetrical, thereby affecting the energy deposited inside the star and its interior structure. Given this new framework, we confirm the findings of previous works (e.g., Baraffe et al. 2009, 2012, Hosokawa et al. 2011) that the evolution changes significantly with the amount of energy that is lost during accretion. We find that deuterium burning also regulates the PMS evolution. In the low-entropy accretion, the evolutionary tracks in the Hertzprung-Russell diagram are significantly different from the classical ones and sensitive to the deuterium content. Our results agree with previous work that the variation of heat injection can be the solution of luminosity spread problem of PMS stars and show the importance of the deuterium content. In order to solve this problem, radiation-hydrodynamic simulations to determine the efficiency of accretion heating and further observations to investigate the deuterium content in star-forming regions are required. We also discuss the internal structure evolution of young stars and the impact on the stellar surface composition.
