Maxime Fays PH24610 - Star Birth

A star is formed from a collapsing cloud, following an environmental perturbation like a supernova explosion, which produce a shockwave. The cloud is mostly composed of Hydrogen (H) and Helium (He) but also contains dust. The typical density of such clouds is in the order of 1,000 atoms per cm3. These dense molecular clouds, which cover a very large area, have a mass from 100,000 to one million solar masses. They contain enough matters to form thousands of stars and the formation mechanisms, though complex, will be simplified while still being challenging for a 2nd year undergraduate student. A star is formed when a molecular cloud collapses under its own gravity and breaks down into pieces. It can be induced by several events: a collision with another molecular cloud, a supernova blast wave or even a massive star being formed nearby.

Did you know?

It is quite difficult to detect a molecular cloud and we have to look for Carbone monoxide (CO) in order to trace it. Fortunately, the ratio between the Carbone monoxide (CO) luminosity and the mass of molecular Hydrogen (H2) is nearly constant.

In order to contract, Gravity has to overcome other forces: the collapse causes heating which in turn causes molecular motion. Particles speed up, the pressure increases and the induced motion slows down the collapse. But higher density also means more interactions between particles, causing the energy to be radiated away more easily this will have important consequences discussed later in this essay. During the formation, there is no hydrostatic equilibriumi and gravity is overcoming pressure. We must also take into account the angular momentum, opposing the collapse the common text book example is the ice skater stretching her arms and rotating slowly, then closing her arms and rotating much more rapidly; the rotation even speeds up as the system collapses. Compression also increases magnetic field, opposing it as well. In the direction perpendicular to the field, charged particles are not free to move and the contraction is hindered.

To simplify for the layman reader, the rotation and magnetic field can be ignored as their effects are complicated to describe mathematically; the gas pressure and heat give an acceptable approximation. A cloud of Hydrogen (H), common even nowadays in galaxies, can be considered as spherical ii and the external perturbation will be supposed to act on the surface of the sphere as a whole, both for the vulgarization of this essay. The initial conditions might sound restrictive at first, but it will be shown that the conclusions drawn will still be representative: it is unrealistic to tackle a real problem that would require information beyond our reach, like the initial state of the cloud.

There are 8 evolutionary stages that an interstellar gas cloud has to go through in order to become a star:iii 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Contraction Fragmentation Single fragment collapsing Protostar Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction Hayashi track Ignition Main sequence star

To have a chance of initiating the contraction, a cloud must undergo an external disturbance, compressing it slightly. This disruption is sometime damped and does not lead to star formations, but if the mass is sufficient, it is amplified and leads to the collapse of the cloud. The collapsing matter transforms the potential energy in kinetic energy in its fall, producing heat that will in turn augment the pressure, and counteracting the fall. A balance can therefore be considered. The part of the cloud outside the sphere is approximated as having no gravitational influence on the sphere itself, the cloud is supposed to consist of ideal gas and so the ideal gas law can be used, the pressure at the surface of the sphere is not null as the cloud it lies in has a density, and the temperature inside the cloud is assumed to be the same everywhere (isotherm) literature values for the temperature are 10k for molecular Hydrogen (H2) and 100k for atomic hydrogen (H+)iv. The process is described as isotherm because the time it takes to collapse is much longer than the time of energy transfer: heat produced in the centre of the cloud takes several years to propagate while it takes millions of years for the cloud to collapse. Let R be the radius of the sphere, the pressure P0 at the Rm R surface is of the form: where the first term represent the gas pressure inside the sphere pushing out and the second the cloud auto gravitation pushing in. and are positive constants depending on the mass and the temperature of the sphere. v
Figure 1. Variation of Pressure with Radius

It is shown in Figure 1 that the pressure is maximal when the radius is . This has important consequences for the stability of the cloud: if the radius is smaller than , the pressure decreases, Gravity gains the upper hand and the cloud collapses whereas if the radius is bigger than , the pressure increases and the cloud slowly goes back to its initial state.

It can be calculated that

where

is a constant, T is the temperature and .

is the cloud

density. It is then trivial to show that the cloud will contract if

The cloud collapses when is bigger than, which is related and can be expressed as having a mass bigger than a definite mass: this is called the Jeans mass. For a sphere, the mass can be mathematically described as and replacing R by leads to . As

increases, decreases and a smaller part of the original cloud will be more massive than the required Jeans mass because its mass doesnt change with time, while the critical Jeans mass decreases and will collapse as well. This FRAGMENTATION will happen hierarchically: the smaller parts will in turn fragment into even smaller units. However, the more the cloud fragments, the more opaque it becomes and the more difficult for the energy to escape. Eventually the energy cant flow out and the contraction will not exchange energy with the outside anymore: from isothermal the process becomes adiabatic. The energy accumulates in the fragment and creates pressure acting against the contraction: if the cloud is considered adiabatic and not isothermal, it is found that the more the cloud contracts, the more the Jeans mass increases and the cloud cant fragment anymore. The smallest Jeans mass calculated is in the order of a few Jupiter masses. The fragmentation phases happen during the time of free fall depending on the mass of the contracting cloud: . The initial cloud takes several millions of years as its radius is

immense. varies in proportion with the square root of the radius cubed and is inversely proportional to the mass. If the SINGLE FRAGMENT COLLAPSING is much smaller than the initial cloud, the radius must have decreased drastically and the free fall time is much smaller a typical value would be several hundred years for a solar mass.vi Well now consider one of the fragments and detail how it transforms into a PROTOSTAR during which the radius decreases from about a hundred Astronomical Unit (AU) to a quarter AU only. In the beginning the contraction is homologue: layers all contract the same way. However the mass increases much more rapidly in the centre and so does the opacity. The energy cant escape as easily and the temperature increases until it matches and blocks the free fall. The core of the protostar is now in hydrostatic equilibrium the interactions between atoms are common enough to standardize their speed, hence their temperature and in a near mechanic equilibrium it still contracts, though much more slowly. The rest of the cloud is still falling and is attracted by the core with a speed higher than the speed of sound in this medium. The falling matter produces a shockwave dissipating its kinetic energy.

The protostar then goes into the Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction phase: it has been stated earlier that the contraction still occurs but is limited by pressure produced by temperature, maintained by the medium opacity. The gas is constituted of molecular Hydrogen (H 2) (for three quarter) and Helium (He) (for one quarter). The floating dust, in present in the gas, is the main source of opacity at low temperature as it absorbs infrared. When the temperature reaches 1000k, dust starts to evaporate and energy is absorbed because of the dissociation of molecules. Temperature becomes constant, there is no more pressure increase and gravity strikes back. The dissociation requires low energy because molecules are held together with weak forces, and the complete process is similar to boiling water, keeping the water temperature at 100 c.vii When the dust is totally evaporated, temperature starts to raise, so does the pressure and contraction is blocked again. When it reaches 1,800k, bonds between molecular Hydrogen (H2) break and give atomic Hydrogen (H). As previously, breaking molecular Hydrogen (H2) absorbs energy: temperature stalls, so does the pressure, gravity wins, the contraction starts again with no temperature change. This last as until there is only atomic Hydrogen (H), then temperature rises one more time, together with pressure and contraction stops. Another cycle happens around 10,000k temperature needed for Hydrogen (H) to be ionized and ends when there is no more Hydrogen (H) to ionize. After that, the temperature required to ionize Helium (He) is reached, and another fast contraction takes place. The core has a temperature of 100,000k and the gas is completely ionized. Hydrostatic equilibrium is sustained now, but weak contractions still occur and produce energy for the protostar to radiate. The core is completely ionized and is formed of plasma, still surrounded by a cloud of molecular Hydrogen (H2) falling, preventing earth based observations and T increasing the cores mass. On figure 2 the Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction phase is plotted: temperature, in orange, is increasing and shows steps. The radius, in blue, decreases. Notice that when the temperature stays approximately constant, the radius decreases more sharply, because the pressure is constant.

Dust evaporation Molecules dissociation

Figure 2.Kelvin-Helmholtz contraction phase

H He ionizatio n

Main sequence

The cloud produces a lot of gravitational energy, the most profitable: using Einsteins equation and knowing the energy output, it is possible to deduce the mass then to compute a ration between the energy and the mass that produced it. Chemical energy gives ratios of around 0,0001%, nuclear energy like Hydrogen (H) fusion is around 0,7%. But gravitational energy has been theorized to reach 50%, even though it is thought that the energy output is in fact around 10%.viii

The protostar temperature is still reasonably low: 100,000k is much lower than the necessary temperature to fuse Hydrogen (H). Density is strong nonetheless and the opacity is very high: above 100,000k temperature needed to ionize Helium (He) the opacity is . Notice that opacity varies proportionally to density but is inversely proportional to temperature (a bit faster than the cube of it). Opacity is relatively high considering the density increased much more than temperature. The energy trapped in the protostar centre is trapped, and temperature increases together with pressure the gas is still considered as ideal. Convection begins to occur due to low local temperature differences. Energy accumulated by a bubble is transpo rted toward the surface, where it is evacuated by radiation as the upper regions are more transparent. ix The bubble then cools down, contracts and dives back in again. Because convection is a really effective mechanism, the entire core is convective: the core cools down, pressure decreases and maintains gravitational contraction, producing a lot of energy. The surface of the protostar is now really bright but is still located in the cloud, where it is hard to observe, especially in the visible spectrum. At this stage, the star is completely convective and follows the Hayashi track: a nearly vertical line on the HR diagram on which are located every totally convective stars from the core to the photosphere. The star-to-be might come in from the right or the left side of the Hayashi track, depending on the following: if it is in the left side, it is considered stable and can evolve classically. On the other hand, if it is located on the right side, the protostar is not entirely convective and contains a radiation zone, modifying the energy transportation and making the protostar unstable. It will evolve along Hayashi track to become stable again. After the contraction, the protostar ends up at the top of the Hayashi track and its temperature is stabilised. x

Figure 3. Hayashi track

Did you know?

Chushiro Hayashi was regarded as a pioneer in astrophysics because he introduced atomic physics theories into astronomy. He was the first Japanese to receive the Eddington Medal from Britains Royal astronomical Society in 1970.

The cloud was initially rotating slowly, but the conservation of angular momentum tells us that its rotation must increases during the contraction. Contracting increases density, atoms and molecules interacts more often, exchanging their kinetic energy and by doing so modifying their trajectory. The rotating cloud then flatten as the gas viscosity brings atoms together is the equatorial disk. Matter gathered that way is available for the formation of planets latter on. The energy evacuated by convection is tremendous and produces strong solar winds. Gas falling from the cloud onto the protostar collides with the wind and part of the matter in the gas is blown away while the other part if absorbed by the protostar.

This forms a separation between the protostar and the rest of the cloud swirling around. The temperature is still too low for nuclear fusion, so the protostar slowly contracts while its heat roughly to the same level. Its position on the HR diagram follows a vertical line because of constant temperature: Hayashi track. As the surface decreases, the luminosity goes down as well and the protostar following the Hayashi track corresponding to its mass. During this phase, the core temperature progressively increases until it is high enough to fuse Deuterium (2h) (present in low quantity in the core) at around 4,000,000k, producing Helium thanks to the chain reactions PP excluding the first. If the protostar mass in under 0,08 sun mass, it is not able to go further as it is not producing Deuterium ( 2h) and cant sustain the first chain reactions PP of hydrogen. It is then named brown dwarf. In a brown dwarf, the core pressure does not increase enough to produce a degenerate electron gas, preventing the temperature to rise with pressure. Ipso facto, it cant reach the temperatu re needed for fusion and quantum pressure stops the contraction. The protostar doesnt have an energy source anymore and is slowly cooling away. If the protostar is bigger than 0,08 sun mass, its core reaches 10 million degrees and hydrogen FUSION occurs. Core contractions stop; the protostar is for the first time in mechanical equilibrium as well as hydrostatic equilibrium. It is represented on the Zero Age Main Sequence on the HR diagram. xi Having mentioned the HR diagram several times, it is now necessary to introduce the system used to represent stars and stars-to-be: xii

Clump of gas becomes protostar when radiation can no longer escape from interior

Figure 4. HertzsprungRussell diagram

The diagram shows the relationship of star regarding the luminosity with respect to the surface temperature. It is extremely popular to represent the evolution of a star on the HR diagram, and it is widely used both for vulgarization articles and for advanced text-book. At the beginning, the temperature is about 10k, placing the star-to-be to the far right. Its radiation is similar to a blackbody at the same temperature, extremely small. The energy output is incredibly low and so its luminosity approaches 0. Hence, the point representing the star is along the horizontal axis far away on the right of the Main Sequence. When the object starts contracting, the temperature rises and the point moves toward the blue, the left. Simultaneously, the energy output increase, so does the luminosity and the point moves up. When it is completely convective, it stabilizes on the point corresponding to its mass and start moving along the Hayashi track. Then it follows the Main Sequences. Now, the protostar is considered as a star, because it enters the Main Sequence. The following information are a quick overview of the future of the new-born star, depending on its mass. Those pieces of information are beyond the scope of this paper, but the author felt that it was necessary to mention the different outcomes. It takes several million years for stars to birth, and several other millions for them to die, the few lines hereafter do not presume to do them justice, but this essay wouldnt be complete without a word on it: It has been seen earlier that a protostar with a mass of less than 0,08 cant initiate Hydrogen (H) fusion and becomes a brown dwarf. If the mass is under 0.5 sun mass, the star is considered as a red dwarf: fusion occurs but at a really slow rates and the luminosity output can be as low as 1/10,000th of the suns. With a mass from 0,5 to 10 solar masses, the protostar life is the same as our suns : it evolves in a red giant and later on in a planetary nebula, forming a white dwarf in its centre. Starting around 10 solar masses, a protostar turns into a red giant followed by a supernova, a blast of tremendous energy released in an incredibly short period of time. If the core remain is under 2,5 solar masses, it will in turn transform into a neutron star, a pulsar or a magnetar. The two latters share the same property than the former, but with some interesting differences. Finally, when the core remain is bigger than 2,5 solar masses, the last stage of its evolution is the black hole, a monster in the universe. Following Hawking radiation, a black hole will eventually vanish after a period thrice as long as the current age of the universe.xiii

Formation and life of a star Gas cloud

Slowly, matter accumulates in the centre to form a core. With time, the force of Gravity can not be countered by pressure, angular motion and magnetism. Atoms are shattered and nuclear reactions take places. The object becomes a star.

Red giant
When a star uses all its Hydrogen (H) and Helium (He) accumulates in the centre, its core contracts and becomes denser, hence hotter. Eventually, it forces the outer parts of the star to expend. Even though the star is much hotter than before, its heat is divided among a bigger surface. Each units of surface is not as hot and so the new surface is colder, and appears redder

Planetary nebula
External layers are blown off in space by pulsations and stellar winds. Ultraviolets emitted by the core are not absorbed by those layers anymore and ionizes the outer layers of the star.

Supernova
Formed in a binary system, the red giant loses mass until it cant sustain fusion and become a white dwarf, then matter from the binary star is accreted by the white dwarf to form a supernova

White dwarf
The star used all the Hydrogen (H) and Helium (He), gravity is not countered by pressure and heat. It contracts, increasing its density and fusion to form iron (Fe).

Neutron star
Star of at least 1,4 solar masses compressed. The density in the core is so high that protons and electrons combine to form neutrons.

Black dwarf
A Theoretical stellar remnant, too cool to emit a significant amount of light or heat. Unobserved as today, because the time it takes to reach this stage is longer than the age of the universe.

Pulsar
Formed when the magnetic poles of a neutron star are not located at the same places as the rotation poles. It spins rapidly and emits deadly microwaves from the magnetic poles, but can only be observed when the beams point toward the earth.

Black hole
Gravity wins against pressure and heat again; the star collapses indefinitely reducing its volume, and its density becomes so high than even light cant escape its gravitational attraction. The point of no return is called event horizon. It has been theorised that a black hole slowly looses mass, and ultimately vanishes.

Bibliography
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Taroyan, Y., PH38310: Solar interior lecture notes ,2010. Baraffe, I., PHY3142: Stars from Birth to Death lecture notes, 2010. iii Veerabathina, N., ASTR1446-001: Astronomy II, 2011. iv Bouvier, J. & Malvet, F., Lenvironnement des etoiles jeunes, 2001. v Gispet,J., Cours dastronomie generale, 2011. vi Low, C. & Lynden-Bell, D., The minimum Jeans mass or when fragmentation must stop, 1976. vii Shu, F., PHYS233: Stellar structure and evolution, 2008. viii Gispet,J., Cours dastronomie generale, 2011. ix Gerbaldi, M. & al., le diagramme Hertzsprung-Russell, 2009. x http://www.nndb.com/people/158/000169648/ xi Ward-Thompson, D., Whitworth, A., An introduction to star formation, 2011. xii Boroson, B., Introduction to Astronomy, 2002. xiii Villeneuve,B., Sguin, M., Astronomie et astrophysique. Cinq grandes ides pour explorer et comprendre l'Univers, 2002
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