Multi-dimensional structure of accreting young stars

¹ University of Exeter, Physics and Astronomy, EX4 4, QL Exeter, UK
e-mail: geroux@astro.ex.ac.uk
² Max-Planck-Institut für Astrophysik, Karl Schwarzschild Strasse 1, 85741 Garching, Germany
³ École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, CRAL (UMR CNRS 5574), Université de Lyon 1, 69007 Lyon, France

Received: 23 December 2015
Accepted: 5 February 2016

Abstract

This work is the first attempt to describe the multi-dimensional structure of accreting young stars based on fully compressible time implicit multi-dimensional hydrodynamics simulations. One major motivation is to analyse the validity of accretion treatment used in previous 1D stellar evolution studies. We analyse the effect of accretion on the structure of a realistic stellar model of the young Sun. Our work is inspired by the numerical work of Kley & Lin (1996, ApJ, 461, 933) devoted to the structure of the boundary layer in accretion disks, which provides the outer boundary conditions for our simulations. We analyse the redistribution of accreted material with a range of values of specific entropy relative to the bulk specific entropy of the material in the accreting object’s convective envelope. Low specific entropy accreted material characterises the so-called cold accretion process, whereas high specific entropy is relevant to hot accretion. A primary goal is to understand whether and how accreted energy deposited onto a stellar surface is redistributed in the interior. This study focusses on the high accretion rates characteristic of FU Ori systems. We find that the highest entropy cases produce a distinctive behaviour in the mass redistribution, rms velocities, and enthalpy flux in the convective envelope. This change in behaviour is characterised by the formation of a hot layer on the surface of the accreting object, which tends to suppress convection in the envelope. We analyse the long-term effect of such a hot buffer zone on the structure and evolution of the accreting object with 1D stellar evolution calculations. We study the relevance of the assumption of redistribution of accreted energy into the stellar interior used in the literature. We compare results obtained with the latter treatment and those obtained with a more physical accretion boundary condition based on the formation of a hot surface layer suggested by present multi-dimensional simulations. One conclusion is that, for a given amount of accreted energy transferred to the accreting object, a treatment assuming accretion energy redistribution throughout the stellar interior could significantly overestimate the effects on the stellar structure and, in particular, on the resulting expansion.