Thieves in the neighborhood: mass transfer from a disk to its companions

Michael Küffmeier

Thursday, Dec. 8th, 14:00CET

Stars often form in clusters. In a cluster, stars commonly experience encounters by other stars, either in a periodic pattern from a companion or in a single event by a stellar flyby. In either case, it is known from models that such encounters affect the accretion profile of the primary protostar. In this talk, I will present results from MHD zoom-in simulations of protostellar multiples that are located in protostellar clusters. Tracer particles allow us to follow the trajectory of the accreting gas. The analysis shows that a protostellar encounter does not only cause variable accretion and perturbations of the disk. A protostellar companion can also "steal" part of the primary star's disk material. I will show examples of such encounter events including measures of mass loss through transfer from a primary disk to a companion star. Finally, I will discuss how mass transfer affects our interpretation of the molecular content observed in protostellar systems.