Abstract
Protostellar disks are expected to form early during the star formation process due to conservation of angular momentum throughout the collapse. While recent surveys by the Very Large Array (VLA) and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have resolved disks around hundreds of nearby protostars, numerical simulations assuming ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) have historically struggled to achieve disk formation – the “magnetic braking catastrophe.” Non-ideal MHD effects, which become relevant at the low ionization fractions typical of molecular clouds, have been shown to reduce the effectiveness of magnetic braking. However, most numerical studies of disk formation also adopt highly-idealized initial conditions of isolated, uniform-density spherical cores collapsing to form individual protostars. This setup may exaggerate the influence of magnetic braking. Furthermore, most stars are born as members of bound systems, and dynamical interactions between stellar neighbors likely affect subsequent disk evolution. It is therefore clear that a comprehensive study of disk formation and evolution must incorporate both external dynamics as well as increasingly sophisticated physics. In this talk, I will present the results from a suite of numerical calculations following the collapse of a turbulent, magnetized 50 solar-mass core down to the formation of stellar clusters and disks using the 3D radiation+gravity MHD code GIZMO, with additional modules for protostellar feedback developed within the STARFORGE numerical framework. These simulations aim to investigate the effects of including non-ideal MHD and realistic protostellar feedback on disk formation and evolution within the context of star cluster (rather than single-star) formation.
