Paper detail

The dynamical evolution of low-mass hydrogen-burning stars, brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects formed through disc fragmentation

Theory and simulations suggest that it is possible to form low-mass hydrogen-burning stars, brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects via disc fragmentation. As disc fragmentation results in the formation of several bodies at comparable distances to the host star, their orbits are generally unstable. Here, we study the dynamical evolution of these objects. We set up the initial conditions based on the outcomes of the SPH simulations of Stamatellos & Whitworth, and for comparison we also study the evolution of systems resulting from lower-mass fragmenting discs. We refer to these two sets of simulations as set 1 and set 2. At 10 Myr, approximately half of the host stars have one companion left, and approximately 22% (set 1) to 9.8% (set 2) of the host stars are single. Systems with multiple secondaries in relatively stable configurations are common (about 30% and 44%, respectively). The majority of the companions are ejected within 1 Myr with velocities mostly below 5 km/s, with some runaway escapers with velocities over 30 km/s. About 6% (set 1) and 2% (set 2) of the companions pair up into very low-mass binary systems. The majority of these pairs escape as very low-mass binaries, while others remain bound to the host star in hierarchical configurations (often with retrograde inner orbits). Physical collisions with the host star (0.43 and 0.18 events per host star for set 1 and set 2) and between companions (0.08 and 0.04 events per host star for set 1 and set 2) are relatively common and their frequency increases with increasing disc mass. Our study predicts observable properties of very low-mass binaries, low-mass hierarchical systems, the brown dwarf desert, and free-floating brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects in and near young stellar groupings, which can be used to distinguish between different formation scenarios of very low-mass stars, brown dwarfs and planetary-mass objects.