Variability in the assembly of protostellar systems

Abstract

Understanding the collapse of clouds and the formation of protoplanetary disks is essential to understanding the formation of stars and planets. Infall and accretion, the mass-aggregation processes that occur at envelope and disk scales, drive the dynamical evolution of protostars. While the observations of protostars at different stages constrain their evolutionary tracks, the impact of variability due to accretion bursts on dynamical and chemical evolution of the source is largely unknown. The lasting effects on protostellar envelopes and disks are tracked through multi-wavelength and time domain observational campaigns, requiring deep X-ray, infrared, and radio imaging and spectroscopy, at a sufficient level of spatial detail to distinguish contributions from the various substructures (i.e., envelope from disk from star from outflow). Protostellar models derived from these campaigns will illuminate the initial chemical state of protoplanetary disks during the epoch of giant planet formation. Insight from individual star formation in the Milky Way is also necessary to understand star formation rates in extragalactic sources. This cannot be achieved with ground-based observatories and is not covered by currently approved instrumentation. Requirements: High (v < 10 km/s for survey; v < 1 km/s for followup) spectral resolution capabilities with relatively rapid response times in the IR (3-500 um), X-ray (0.1-10 keV), and radio (cm) are critical to follow the course of accretion and outflow during an outburst. Complementary, AU-scale radio observations are needed to probe the disk accretion zone, and 10 AU-scale to probe chemical and kinematic structures of the disk-forming regions, and track changes in the dust, ice, and gas within protostellar envelopes.