The Dynamics of Newborn Triple Systems : Orphaned Protostars, Brown Dwarf Binaries, and Freefloating Planets

Séminaire IPAG de Bo Reipurth (U. of Hawaii), mercredi 23 mai 2012 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Newly born triple systems are inherently unstable, and undergo chaotic dynamic evolution until they find a stable configuration or they break apart. Detailed numerical simulations of three stellar embryos embedded in a cloud core map out the effects of dynamics and accretion. These two processes interact in complex ways, and I explore the main pathways that stellar embryos follow as they gain mass during the protostellar phase. The results lead to observational predictions, and I present various new observations for comparison with the numerical simulations.