Abstract
This contribution describes the formation of circumstellar disks and their earliest evolutionary phases when self-gravity in the disk plays a crucial role in eliciting the transport of mass and angular momentum. We first discuss the formation of protostellar disks within the context of analytic infall-collapse solutions. We then discuss our efforts to understand the behavior of the newly formed disks. Our specific approach consists of performing a detailed analysis of a simplified model disk which is susceptible to the growth of a spiral instability. Using a combination of numerical simulation and semi-analytic analysis, we show how the dramatic early phase of mass and angular momentum transport in the disk can be explained by a second-order nonlinear process involving self-interaction of a dominant two-armed spiral mode.
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Adams, F.C., Laughlin, G. (2000). Protostellar Disk Formation And Early Evolution. In: Benz, W., Kallenbach, R., Lugmair, G.W. (eds) From Dust to Terrestrial Planets. Space Sciences Series of ISSI, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4146-8_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4146-8_3
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