SUGGESTED ORIGIN OF THE SUN AND BROWN BODY

and

BINARY STARS (and EXTRASOLAR PLANETS - F.L,2008)

By T. Frank Lee, Geologist.  4/2/2009.

The solar system pages in this web site have no particular order.  The topics have appeared mostly in the order they were intensively studied and solved, and only occasional reference has been made to the major steps of evolution as given by the Single Body Breakup Hypothesis of Solar System Origin.  It was only in late 2008 that a poster for presentation at geological conferences in Perth, W.A. and Olso, Norway was produced giving an accurate, detailed sequence of the breakup as well as over thirty of the planetary relationships deduced from this.  The poster appears in this web site.

But of course the poster could not give the full reasons for the breakup.  There are three topics, so far only vaguely mentioned in the papers, which should be presented to help the understanding of the hypothesis: (i) the transition from molecular cloud ® protostar ® Sun and brown body; (ii) where did Earth’s water come from; and (iii) an explanation of planetary distribution of the noble gases.  This paper is the first of these topics.

The “Suggested Origin of the Sun and Brown Body” and “Binary Stars” were written in 1993 and formed part of my book “The Origin and Development of the Sun and Planets”, (1994) ISBN 0646 19165 9, Legal deposit receipt No. LD94/4703.  Not seeing any need to “update” the writing, I give here the extracts verbatim (pp.112-131).

One thing I would like to “crow” about is the reasoning based on the hypothesis in “Binary Stars”, which predicted the inevitable presence of extrasolar planetary bodies of a wide range of types.  The hypothesis predicates these various types of bodies, bodies that were only detected years later.  This is further support for the hypothesis.

SUGGESTED ORIGIN OF THE SUN AND BROWN BODY

We now move back one final step to offer an origin for the brown body and to discuss a possible mechanism for the formation of the Sun and of the postulated brown body considered in the previous pages.

A number of theoretical research workers have studied the development of a star from the collapse of dense cores within molecular clouds.  Stahler (1991) points out that, “In the 1960s theorists had used computer simulations to determine how clouds in unstable states collapse.

     “Although the simulations assumed widely varying initial conditions, each showed that clouds that are not   violently unstable collapse in an inside-out manner.  That is, material at the center first enters into a true free-fall collapse while the outlying gas remains static.  Gadually the region of collapse spreads outwards through the rest of the cloud.”  A number of suggested collapse sequences have been proposed from these computer simulations, e.g. Winkler and Newman (1980) – “A region of supersonic free-fall flow lies outside a central region in hydrostatic equilibrium, separated by one or more shock fronts, ---.”

In 1980, Stahler, Shu, and Taam suggested that by the time a protostar within a dense core of 1 MSun had reached a mass of about 0.01 to 0.02 MSun it developed about itself a thin dust envelope, outside which lay the main bulk of the gas/dust body.  The inside of the dust envelope is said to be delineated by volatilisation of the dust (“dust destruction front”) abutting an opacity gap.  The whole structure which is claimed to form is given in a general paper on the subject by Stahler (1991) in the Scientific American.   The development by Stahler , Shu, and Taam differs from others by incorporating the dust envelope.  I have been unable to see why this envelope is assumed to develop.  Perhaps it is because the resulting protostar to pre-main-sequence star to main-sequence star is considered to require a disc of dust to finally encircle it; the understanding being that planets form from an “accretionary disc” about a young, forming star.

Most computer models are based on collapse of a non-rotating molecular dense core.  Stahler (1991) argues that as the region of collapse expands outwards, the higher angular momentum outer material of a rotating mss, as it falls inwards, misses the small protostar and collects as a disc about the central body.  But would this account for all the angular momentum?  Nowhere does he say momentum is conserved.  In fact Hartmann et al (1986) make it clear (p.290) that collapse theories ignore angular momentum transport.

If my idea of the central core of a shelled protostar separating from its parent is correct then somewhat different conditions of core collapse are required.  While it is possible to argue a simple development of the protostar if collapse is somewhat like a deflating balloon, the mechanism of “inside-out” collapse gives an even better.  However, three basic conditions are required.  First, angular momentum is conserved by the acceleration of the whole collapsed mass to offset the momentum lost by inward movement of material to the protostar; secondly, no dust barrier forms; and three, the cloud consists of gas (dominant), dust (minor component), and material larger in size than dust – though possibly not greatly – (very minor).

Again, I interpret the collapse as being Newtonian.  By this I mean that the individual grains (at least approximately) obey the law F = GMm/d2.  With this so, of any two grains of equal volume but one having a greater density than the other then that of greater mass will move more rapidly to the centre.  This condition modifies the outer face of the region of collapse; it becomes a diffuse zone.  It also means that there will be a differential movement of material towards the forming protostar.  While gas (dominantly hydrogen) is moving inwards and accreting to the protostar, dust and grains of silicate, sulphides, and carbonides, etc, and even heavier gases, move even more rapidly to the centre.  The result is that the core will become enriched in these heavier elements and molecules, probably to the point where they dominate over hydrogen.

Previous simulations of cloud collapse using non-rotating masses assume that the loss of potential energy results in acceleration of the individual collapsing particles all radially to a central point, to supersonic speeds, and final loss of this energy by heat at the shock front at/near the protostar where accretion takes place.  However, if there is angular momentum and the angular momentum of the cloud is conserved, the momentum lost by the infalling material will result in angular acceleration of the infalling material.  Acceleration would probably be something like a watch spring, being somewhat faster in the inner part of the cloud and somewhat slower in the outer part and the material would tend to “wind around” the central point rather than fall to the point.  (A multi-armed spiral could possibly tend to develop in the interior during the early part of the collapse but would dissolve during the latter part.)  The moment of inertia factor, originally somewhere near 0.4, would also slowly decrease as the protostar developed.  Much of the potential energy lost by the infalling material would be converted to kinetic energy.

It can therefore be argued that the protostar would not attain temperatures of evaporation of the silicates as Stahler et al claim.  The temperature would slowly increase but not at nearly the rate previous simulations assumed nor to the very high temperatures calculated.  Under such a condition the infalling material would certainly continue to accelerate inwards but perhaps not to as great a speed as previously believed.  This means that the “shock zone” would be much thicker than previously argued, with the material entering the zone at an acute angle to the zone’s face.  Further, as Winkler and Newman (1980) point out (p.210), “If specific angular momentum is conserved in the early stages of the collapse, any small amount of rotation inherent in the initial cloud could be greatly magnified, slowing down the accretion phase.”  A longer period of accretion, say nearer 106 years as sometimes suggested instead of 105 years, would allow more efficient cooling in the early and middle phases of the collapse.

It is accepted that the protostar would not remain spherical as collapse proceeded.  It might or might not form a sphere-cum-disc but recently reported observations of planetary nebula suggest to me rather that a prolate ellipsoidally formed body develops (see later in this discussion).  Another difference to Stahler’s model is that there would be no sharp physical divisions.  Instead, the evolving body would be continuous but with a gradually increasing density towards the centre (rapidly increasing just outside the protostar) and with a gradual depletion outwards of the heavier molecules/masses making up the cloud.

For a 1 MSun cloud such a development would result in a much larger protostar forming than that argued by Stahler before opacity near the protostar could cause a rapid rise in temperature.  In fact it can be argued that movement of the heavier molecules to the centre would be so rapid that the density of 10-13 g.cm-3 of a gas/dust mixture is not reached except at a thin zone at the surface of the protostar so that little heat is generated and little impediment is given to heat radiation.

Another important result of “inside-out” collapse of the dense core is that initially, transfer of angular momentum is very small but increases, at first gradually and then at an accelerating rate, as collapse continues.  This is the reverse of “balloon deflation” collapse.  Thus the rotation both of the cloud and of the protostar would be small for a quite appreciable part of the time of accretion.  Only during the latter part of accretion would rotation become high as progressively larger amounts of momentum were incorporated in the collapse.  This phenomenon is important for two reasons, now given.

I suggest that, in the case of our Sun, collapse and accretion continued until a mass equal to that of the present   Solar System, together with the present (conserved) angular momentum was reached.  Further, that this mass was finally attained when the breakup speed of a star of MSun, given  as about 200 km.sec-1 by Hartmann at al (1986), was reached by our protoSun.  This speed would be reached by the protostar edge at a radius of about 8 RSun if the cloud collapsed as a deflating balloon.  But Hartmann et al (1986) on p.290 state, on the basis of “inside-out collapse, that “--, the surface velocities of stars which have just ended their protostellar accretion phase should be comparable to breakup speed.  For a 1 MSun with a protostellar radius of 5 RSun (Stahler, Shu, and Taam 1980), breakup speed is 200km.s-1.”  In my original approximate calculations for core ejection I determined a value of 6RSun   and so well within limits.

It requires simple mathematics to see that at a distance of 5RSun  centripetal acceleration would greatly exceed acceleration due to gravity.  However, the speed of a once distant particle of the cloud, by the time it had neared the protostar, would be very great.  While the model being suggested here would probably see a lesser speed than that of the “supersonic freefall flow” (Winkler and Newman, 1980) quoted in other models, the speed would almost certainly be supersonic.  Thus, although the falling matter would undergo outward acceleration as it drew near the protostar surface (rough calculations suggest from about 1AU) it would still move inwards – but at a decreasing velocity.  This means that after a long period of gradual increase in impact velocity, as the protostar approached its final size, impact velocity would begin to decrease, so preventing rapid heating by impact.  Remember also, the final material would be depleted in the heavier elements.

A stage would be reached, though, when matter would still be collapsing inwards but its velocity would first become zero at the protostar surface, then increasingly negative, i.e. outwards, before reaching the surface.  Thus there would be for a period of time outwardly flowing gas and dust, apparently from the protostar but in actual fact originally infalling material which was unable to reach the protostar due to velocity reversal.  It is obvious that for a while there would be two-way movement of material in the region of collapse but because the outward moving gas would both impede the inward moving gas, and because the outward moving gas would also finally impinge on the surrounding collapsing cloud, so preventing it from collapsing and even driving it outwards, growth of the protostar would cease and the surrounding cloud be removed.  What has been described here is, of course, the T-Tauri stage of star formation.  (It will be shown below that the commencement of outflow required by the madel agrees with the known time.)  It is possible that a weak disc of material could encircle the protostar, resulting from inward and outward material collision causing suitable radial velocities for particles at the proper distances from the protostar.  The material should be mostly dust.

The suggested model therefore gives a poorly internally shelled protostar with a radius (if spherical) of about 5RSun and average density about 1/125 that of the Sun, rotating at just on breakup speed.  (Below it will be shown that the figure was more likely that of a prolate ellipsoid, in which case breakup speed would first be attained at pericentre.)  Essentially it has no disc and although hot it is at a temperature below the vaporisation temperature of the silicates.  There is some observational support for this model.

Hartmann et al (1986) studied the rotational and radial velocities of 50 T-Tauri stars.  Observations and comments made in the paper, and which I believe to be pertinent to my argument, are commented on as follows.  On p.285 Hartmann et al observe, “Recent studies of open clusters shows (sic) that many solar-type stars are rapidly rotating when they first arrive on the main sequence --.”  This is support for my model of increasing rotation as the protostar forms and develops into a pre-main-sequence star.  “The observed rotational velocities of (p.288) T-Tauri stars in the same mass range [of youngest open cluster, Per] (Fig.11b) imply that at least some T-Tauri stars spin up during contraction to the main sequence.  (My emphasis.)  These data can be used to constrain the amount of angular momentum lost during the pre-main-sequence evolution of low-mass stars.”  On p.288 they comment, “Low-mass stars rotate at rates far below breakup velocity at an early age.” [on the main sequence line].   “----   The important thing is that in either [their emphasis] (p.290) picture, the surface velocity of stars which have just ended their protostellar accretion phase should be comparable to breakup speed ----.  Since almost all [of the stars studied] rotate at 20 km.s-1 or less, they have only 10% of the angular momentum predicted by theories which ignore angular momentum transport during collapse.  These stars must therefore undergo substantial braking during or immediately following (my emphasis) the protostellar accretion phase; the pre-main-sequence braking cannot last longer than 105 yr. --- What is needed is rapid angular momentum transport, i.e. braking, in the protostellar or early pre-main-sequence phase.”  (My emphasis.)  But such braking at this time is a requirement of the model I am about to present.  At a later stage in their discussion, Hartmann et al propose braking to be due to “stellar wind spindown”.  They did not consider sudden loss of a possible core of the protostar.

They also comment on p.290, “In the mass range 0.7-1.5 MSun, our stars have angular momenta per unit mass J between 2.8x1016 and 1.7x1017 cm2s-1 (using a factor of π/4 to correct for the average sin i).  The same quantity for the Sun is 8x1014 cm2s-1, assuming solid body rotation (see Brandt, Wolff, and Cassinelli 1969).  Thus solar-type T-Tauri stars have angular momenta 30-200 times that of the present Sun, ----.  It is striking that most of these stars have angular momenta well below the value of 1.6x1017 cm2s-1 for the present-day solar system (Kraft 1970).  Our results suggest that the Sun never had most of the angular momentum of the solar system.”  (My emphases.)  I emphasise the figures to show that the Solar System angular momentum is of the order of that of the T-Tauri stars studied but that the angular momentum of the Sun, alone, is very much smaller.  As will be seen below this is the result that my model requires.  It also requires that the Sun never had most of the angular momentum of the Solar System (but the protostar did have), which is the conclusion arrived at, but without explaining it, by Hartmann et al.

The results of Hartmann et al therefore can be fully explained by – are a requirement of – the model of evolution of the Sun about to be presented here.  It is now necessary to show that a “trigger” exists for the suggested mechanism which resulted in Sun and brown body.

At the beginning of this paper it was shown that if the small inner core of such a body was to be displaced, then a mechanism depending on the moment of inertia factor comes into play and the core must be ejected from the protostar.  An astrophysicist who was approached with this mechanism would not accept it as he could see no way the mechanism could be triggered.  It may not be necessary to devise or suggest a “trigger”; it may result as a natural consequence of evolution of the star.  I make this comment for the following reasons.  Hernquist (1991), in an introductory article to one by Boss on pp.298-300 of the same publication, made the following comment, “It is certainly the case that the cores of molecular clouds are not smoothly distributed6.  In general, one might expect the density to vary over a number of angular scales ---.”  I suggest that if the cores are irregularly distributed then the gas forming any one core will have unequal forces exerted on it, due to the surrounding cores.  This being so, I suggest that the body, particularly in its medium to late stages, will tend to form a body of triaxial ellipsoidal form.

Again, Boss (1985) concludes from numerical analysis that a slowly rotating cloud collapses, at first slowly then rapidly and asymmetrically, to form an asymmetric core.  In his conclusions section, in respect to the middle stages of collapse, it is stated, “A very slowly rotating cloud will dynamically collapse into the nonisothermal regime without undergoing fragmentation.  However, the pressure supported central condensation that results will be surrounded by a strong nonaxisymmetric region of infalling and quasistatic gas.”  It is therefore not at all a ridiculous statement for me to make in proposing that the collapse was asymmetric in the Solar System case.

In my view the development of a collapsing core would be very similar to that of compact planetary nebulae.  Thus I present selected parts of the paper by Aaquist and Kwok (1991) to show that the development of a compact planetary nebula gives an identical structure to that argued in my hypothesis for a developing planetary system.

In the paper by Aaquist and Kwok are brief descriptions of some of the individual bodies studied by the writers.  Of interest here is that almost all the objects are noted as being non-spherical.  For example, for object M2-43:  “ The 15 GHz map in Figure 1 shows a classical planetary nebula shape, which can be explained most simply as a prolate ellipsoidal shell.”;    for object K3-6:   “--- The spherical shell-like geometry shown in Figure 1 leaves little doubt that this is a planetary nebula, ---- “This is the only object in our sample that shows a perfect circular shell geometry --“;  for object K3-29:  “--  At 15 GHz K3-29 takes on the apperance (sic) of a very regular prolate ellipsoidal shell --.  A closer examination of the 5 and 15 GHz images indicate that the major axis of the outer halo is slightly different from the major axis of the inner structure seen in the 15 GHz map.”;  for object M3-35:  “--  The deep central emission minimum and the ‘concave’ contours surrounding the peaks imply that this is a prolate ellipsoidal shell structure with the major axis rotated towards us by about 60o.  There is a significant brightness enhancement at the SW end of the nebula, indicating greater densities in that direction.”  (My emphases.)

The above descriptions make it clear that planetary nebulae tend more readily to form prolate ellipsoids than spheres or oblate ellipsoids.  In particular, object M3-35 shows that the denser inner material concentrates, or in some cases concentrates, “off-centre”.  It probably concentrates about a focal point of the ellipsoid.  It is this combination, formation of an ellipsoid and offsetting of the centre of mass, which is so interesting for the hypothesis presented in the present paper; for they are the developments required in a molecular core and its resultant collapsed centre to begin the whole process of planetary formation.  And the comments of Hernquist and of Boss referred to above indicate that such asymmetry and concentration does or could take place in a protostar and its precursor.  From this, also, it is seen that abrupt physical movement of the core of the proposed protostar is not necessary to trigger the ejection mechanism, for such a body as it evolves becomes both symmetrically and dynamically unstable.

[Years later I became aware that there are ellipsoidal galaxies and that they follow the same dynamics as I give in this article, except that some merely detach an end.  See a paper on this in this website.]

With such a development, as the nebula, the protostar and envelope, increases its rotation during protostar growth, the surface velocity of the protostar will increase.  (As pointed out above, p.116, because buildup is by “inside-out” collapse rotation increase will be slow for quite some time but will be rapid in its later stages – proportional to d3?)  For a sphere the surface speed will be equal around its equator.  For a prolate ellipsoid the surface speed will vary, being least at apcentre and greatest at pericentre.  That is to say, the maximum velocity would be nearest to the core of an object that has developed into a form such as M3-35.  It would be here that breakup velocity would be first reached, leading to a decrease in pressure along the pericentral axis of the core.  The core would be expected to move outwards along the pericentral radius of the object.

It is clear that the descriptions of the planetary nebulae given by Aaquist and Kwok, when assumed to be applicable to (at least some) protostars, as the comments of  Herquist and Boss suggest is possible, point to a simple, at first gradual, and inevitable trigger for the ejection mechanism of the postulated (by me) shelled core of a protostar.  The conclusion then is that planetary systems, or in some cases probably binary stars, form as a natural consequence of star development for a certain mass range.  The nebula, and almost certainly the protostar, develop as bodies with off centre mass and increasing rotation.  A stage must be reached in such a case when the protostar core is ejected.  This ejection would take place at about the same time as outflowing of gas from the object, i.e. the T-Tauri stage of the protostar as it passed through the pre-main-sequence phase of star development to main-sequence stage.

The above arguments attempt to show, amongst other things, that a mechanism is inherent in prolate ellipsoidal protostars requiring the core to be displaced along the pericentral axis when the pericentral speed reaches escape velocity.  It is now intended to consider the effect displacement of the core would have on the system.  The investigation cannot be mathematically rigid as the physical values to be entered in the formulae used can only be approximated.  Still, it is intended to show that even so, the results support the hypothesis of this paper.

The moment of inertia factor of the present Sun is given as 0.05 (Cole, 1990).  (Cole (1979) gives a value of 0.06 but as this figure was seen after calculations were made the value of 0.05 will be used.)  The protostar from which the Sun and its satellites originated must therefore have had a much smaller moment of inertia factor.  This because not only was its radius at breakup equal to 5RSun but it also carried at its centre the heavier elements which ultimately made up the planets and so had an even relatively smaller, dense core than the present Sun.  For computation purposes I shall assume a moment of inertia factor of 0.05/52 = 0.002.

It is assumed that instability of the protostar resulted in displacement of its core outwards along the pericentral axis.  Should such a movement occur the protostar would, in effect, become a system of two interacting bodies rather than a single body and the moment of inertia factor of the system would rise.  The factor for the brown body as a sphere has been calculated as about 0.357 (p.85); for the remaining bulk of the gases, that which ultimately became the Sun, would abruptly rise towards 0.4.  I shall use a conservative figure of 0.25, making it slightly less than present Jupiter, although it would probably have been greater.

Using the above figures, the masses of the present bodies in the Solar System, and the radius of the Sun – considering the body as a sphere – we can say that before the core moved from the centre of the protostar (When the calculations were made in the early 1990s my belief was that the mass of Jupiter was 1999x1024 kg.  This figure was taken from “Early Physical Conditions of the Planets and Satellites” by G.H.A.Cole, Table 2, p.5 [“Geophysics. 1990]. It was not until some considerable time later that I discovered the value to be 1899x1024 kg.  I have not recalculated the answers to the following equations as the differences in values is small, a maximum of 5%, and with the assumptions being used the difference cannot change the argument.):

Angular momentum of the protostar = IШ = aMr2Ш = 0.002x1.99276x1030x52x 6.992x1010xШ

                                                                            = 312.6x1035 kg.km2.sec-1  (from Cole, 1990, p.11)

                                            And therefore Ш = 6.4211x10-4 rad sec-1

Thus the kinetic energy of the body would have been = 1/2.aMr2Ш

                        = 0.5x0,002x1.99276x1030x52x6.992x1010x6.42112x10-8 =10.036x1033 kg.km2.sec-2

After the core had moved from the centre:  Approximate angular velocity of the main mass of the protostar (the protoSun) plus displaced core (on the assumption the core is still within the main mass)

                        = Ш = 312.6x1035/(0.25x1.99276x1030x52x6.992x1010) = 5.1369x10-6 rad.sec-1

That is, there would have been a large decrease in angular velocity.

The body would then have had kinetic energy approximately

                        = 0.05x0.25x1.99276x1030x52x6.992x1010x5.13692x10-12 = 8.029x1031 kg.km2.sec-2

Thus there was a great change of energy, also.

It was calculated on p.17 that the energy in the present Solar System (Saturn omitted) about the Sun is approximately = 183x1033 kg. m2.sec-2  or 183x1027 kg.km2.sec-2

For Saturn, K.E. = 0.5x568.6x1024x9.62 = 26.2x1027 kg.km2.sec-2

P.E. = -6.67x1.99x1030x568.6x1024/(1011x214.9x6.99x108x9.54x106) = -52.7x1027 kg.km2.sec-2

Therefore total energy at present in the Solar System of planets approximately = (183+26.2)x1027 = 209.2x1027

Say 210x1027  kg.km2.sec-2.

This is the energy which would have been required to drive the planets from the protoSun centre assuming no energy loss.  But the difference between the energy before and after ejection of the brown body core was approximately 10.0x1033 – 8,0x1031 = 9.92x1033 kg.km2.sec-2

That is, some 4.7x104 times more energy was released than was required for ejection.  Allowing for energy loss of 50% from heat radiation, gas flow, etc. there would have been 100 times the energy required.  The energy required was very little.

But assume that the excess energy of 9.992x1033 kg.km2.sec-2 was required to separate the two bodies – the Sun mass and the brown body mass – at escape velocity (as the brown body did not escape this case is worse than actual.), then the two body centres would have had to have been separated by the following fraction of the present Sun radius:           s = 9.92x1033x1011x6.99x105x106/(6.67x1.99x1030x2.76x1027) = 0.0189   (Note: 1 - 0.0189 = 0.9811, that is 0.98.)

That is, the core would need only to have been displaced by about 13230 km from the centre of the original body, which at 3495000 km radius if taken as a sphere was very little indeed.  If it is accepted that the brown body began to move independently, due to the escape velocity being reached at the pericentre of the protostar, the distance between the body centres would already exceed the distance required; unless ellepticity was small.

Thus the calculations show that even if worse case scenarios are used there was ample energy to eject the brown body core to 5.3 AU from the remainder of the protostar mass, i.e. from the protoSun.

The calculations show that as the core was ejected the remainder, the protoSun, slowed down.  This must have occurred fairly rapidly.  Oldshaw (1968) on p.8 states, “--, the predominant forces controlling everything [of a collapsing cloud] are the gravitational forces and the forces due to the rotation.”  Rotational forces oppose the gravity forces.  The rapid and large reduction of the velocity of the protoSun would mean the outward force due to rotation would be greatly reduced and the effect of gravity greatly enhanced over that short time.  This would result in a rapid decrease of the protoSun’s radius as the dominantly gas cloud collapsed inwards – in this case from 5RSun to 1RSun.  There would be a concomitant decrease in the moment of inertia factor with decrease in the radius – to say its present-day value of 0.05 – as the pressure towards the centre of the body would rapidly increase to beyond the atomic bond collapse pressure and so cause a density concentration at the centre.  It is assumed that because of the collapse the pressure at the centre reached fusion pressure for hydrogen and the Sun came into being.

With the figures used above, at the end of the collapse the new body, the Sun, would have an angular momentum  = 0.05x1.99x1030x6.992x1010x5.1369x10-6  =  2.4973x1035 kg,km2.sec-1

This is of the order of the present Sun value of 1.6x1035.  Note that this value for the Sun is 2.5/312.6  =  1/125th of the value before slowing down.  This accords with the values determined from a study of present protostars by Hartmann et al (1986, p.290) and quoted on p.118 of this paper, viz. J per unit mass between 2.8x1016 and 1.7x1017 cm2.sec-1 compared with the Sun of 8x1014 or a ratio of approximately 1.7x1017/(8x1014) = 125!  It also shows why the difference.  The momentum has been transferred to an ejected body which ultimately broke up to form the present planets.  The sum of momenta for Sun and planets approximates determined protostar values.

Actually, when the idea of this mechanism first originated, and before reading other workers’ papers, the writer roughly deduced an unstable radius of approximately 6RSun and used an original moment of inertia factor of 0.0015.  These values give an angular momentum for the Sun of 1.73x1035 kg.km2.sec-1.

(The rotation of the Sun calculated here is 5.1369x10-6 rad.sec-1 compared to a value somewhere near 2π/(26.5x3600) or 6.5x10-5 rad.sec-1.  However, the exact rotation cannot be estimated as the body does not act as a perfect solid and rotation varies with latitude and possibly with depth.  When the Sun’s known angular momentum of 1.6x1035 kg.km2.sec-1 is inserted in the equation to find angular velocity a value of 3.2911x10-6 is obtained.)

The actual factors used do not really matter; they show, no matter which reasonable figures are selected, that the angular momentum of the Sun in a closed system Sun and satellites, and derived from a protostar due to ejection of its core, MUST be less than that of the remainder of the system.  The hypothesis thus accounts for the so-far unsatisfactorily explained phenomenon of the main member of the Solar System containing less angular momentum than its system of satellites.  In fact, it is a requirement of the mechanism.

              The new kinetic energy of the main body, the Sun, would   =   0.5x0.05x1.99x1030x6.992x1010x5.13692x10-12       = 6.4x1029 kg.km2.sec-2, i.e. a further loss of energy, though much less than before. 

As angular momentum is conserved in a closed system, and there were only two members in the protostar system considered, then the loss of momentum by the protoSun to give the Sun could only have been taken up by the ejected core, i.e. the brown body.  (Note that it is assumed that the direction of the force of ejection of the brown body was through the centre of the protostar.)  It has been shown above that there was ample energy generated to give the brown body the speed required to absorb the momentum change,

Before the collapse of the protoSun, immediately prior to the brown body core moving from its “central” point, the brown body would have been rotating approximately in harmony with the protoSun mass.  At 5RSun this rotation was 6.4211x10-4 rad.sec-1 (previously calculated, p.122) assuming a rigid body.  Because of its much greater density compared with the protostar remainder, its much greater rigidity , its greater moment of inertia factor, and its comparatively small surface area, the rotation of the brown body would decrease only slightly as it passed out of the protoSun.  (It would be expected that its path outwards would be a spiral as both a tangential/circumferential force and an axial force would be acting on it.  However, ejection would have been completed after about one revolution.)  Say that at final ejection the brown body axial rotation had slowed 10% due to the friction of the gases through which the body passed.  This suggests the brown body had a rotation of 6.4211x10-4x0.9 = 5.7790x10-4 rad.sec-1.  The brown body radius as a sphere has been determined as 85332 km.  Therefore the surface speed of the body = 85332x5.7790x10-4 = 49.3 km.sec-1.  This compares with a previously calculated particle speed (p.101) of 46.5 km.sec-1.  The near equality of the values may be pure coincidence; then again, they may indicate that the hypothesis has some substance.

It is probably worth pointing out here that the brown body when at the centre of the protostar reflected the structure of the protostar.  That is to say, it was probably prolate ellipsoidal in shape.  This would have greatly facilitated its elongation after leaving the protoSun; it was already partway to it.

Another comment that can be made is that if the total energy of the planets estimated on p123 – 210x1027 kg.km2.sec-2 - is equated with 1/2mv2 then v = 12.3 km.sec-1 for the initial radial movement of the brown body.

Also as shown in Test 10 the orbital speed of a body in our Solar System at 5RSun from the centre of the Sun would be 195.4 km.sec-1, which, being closely the breakup speed of 200 km.sec-1 at that distance as calculated by Stahler et al (1980) for a protostar of 1MSun, suggests that this was the orbital speed of the brown body about the protoSun as it passed out of that body.  It can be argued, then, that the orbital (tangential) speed of the brown body as it left the protoSun was considerably greater than the radial speed from the protoSun centre.  Thus the requirement as enunciated by Motz and Duveen (1966) that such a condition must exist for a near-circular orbit of a satellite about the Sun is met in this case.

BINARY STARS

As a digression I would point out that the mechanism of breakup of a 1MSun protostar as given here allows some light on binary star systems where the companions are relatively near to one another.  The mechanism that follows is not considered the only mechanism that produces binary stars.  It may, however, be the only one to produce planets.

Cole (1990) has pointed out that there appears to be a distribution gap between the smallest of brown bodies and the largest of planetary bodies.  For some reason or other intermediate-sized bodies appear to be lacking.  He writes (p.44), “It is strange that the greatest planetary mass (Jupiter) is very close to the maximum possible (see Section 4.5),  This is the more interesting because no known dwarfs have yet been unambiguously identified .but theory (Section 4.4) predicts a continuity of mass at least to the stellar region.  Barnard’s star (see Section 8.2) provides a case where the situation is far from clear, but otherwise the known small companions of stars have masses in excess of 1029 kg, which is in the stellar range.  The surface temperature of a brown dwarf is likely to be in the range 1000-2500 K and this is low for present detection methods, and this could be the explanation of why they have not been detected.”

From these points, and interpreting the effects of variation in mass and angular momentum by use of the hypothesis, we can suggest the following.  I shall use the term dense clouds for the usual term dense cores in molecular clouds.  This is to avoid confusion with the dense core of the protostar.

For increasingly smaller dense clouds, even if the body became ellipsoidal, a size would be reached where, assuming the escape velocity could be reached, ejection would either approximate the breakup of the brown body discussed above or no core breakup would take place.  The outer gas would simply pass off.  This latter case would occur where temperature was relatively low and ellipticity (perhaps in part as a result) was not great so that movement of the core would be insufficient to trigger the moment of inertia mechanism.  It is interesting to note that the postulated brown body before breakup into the planets lay just within and at the bottom of the hypothetical brown body field; while Jupiter, its remnant, lies just below.

In the case of a large dense cloud mass, its initial angular momentum would have to be large, indeed, for the derived protostar to be sufficiently prolate for escape velocity to be reached before core fusion.

Thus it would be expected that binary star systems would tend to be commonest in a restricted, “medium-sized” mass range for stars.

For a 1MSun ellipsoidal protostar, it would be expected that (i) a single star would form: (ii) a star with a planetary system would form; (iii) a star with a brown body companion would form; or (iv) a star companion would form depending on whether the initial angular momentum of the dense cloud was low, moderate, somewhat higher than moderate or high.  (2008 emphasis. F.L)

For larger masses with slightly lower angular momentum the ejected core (with captured gas) could be sufficiently large to develop a star, so that a binary system would form.  For yet larger masses the core could be ejected to form a star but the protostar collapse only slowly to allow a repetition of the trigger mechanism, so forming a ternary system.  However, a mass would be reached where even for high angular momentum breakup would be unlikely to occur.  (It is also possible in large mass cases that Jean’s mechanism would come into play in some cases, resulting in peaceful separation of the protostar.)  [See the paper in my website on my much later brief study of ellipsoidal galaxies with accompanying qasars.  This latter description fits their breakup very well. FL, 2008.)

It can also be said from the above that a large force of ejection would propel the core out to a larger distance from the originating protostar than a small force of ejection.  This varying radial velocity has important consequences.  As has already been mentioned, Motz and Duveen (1966) – see 523 M923 – p.147 point out that if any particle is thrown into space in the neighbourhood of the Sun “it can move in a circular orbit only if at the moment it is thrown, it is moving exactly at right angles to the line from it to the sun and exactly at the speed given by the previous equation [V2circle = G(MSun+m/a].”  Any deviation from these conditions results in a noncircular orbit.  Thus the larger radial ejection force the more elliptical will be the orbit of the ejected body; for the escape velocity ill almost certainly increase only slightly for increasing body size.  (Note for the brown body previously discussed the escape velocity for the body which is one thousandth the size of the protostar has been computed as 133.8 km.sec-1 compared with 200 km.sec-1.

How does all the above fit with field data?

In reporting on AU Colloquium 135 of April, 1992 Clarke (Cathie Clarke, 1992, “Stars arriving two by two”, Nature 357 pp.197 and 8) records,” The picture that is starting to emerge from this wealth of data is that binaries are very common among main sequence stars, current estimates suggesting that the fractions of binaries among solar type stars is at least 65% (M. Mayor, Geneva Observatory).  These binaries span six orders of magnitude in separation, from systems that are almost in contact to those that are so wide that they are destined to be dissolved eventually by encounters with field stars.”

Clarke goes on, “The orbits are generally highly eccentric, implying that binary companions must form in a fundamentally different way to planets, whose orbits are pretty much circular.  One notable result is an apparent dearth of the highest eccentricities among systems with closer separations, implying that the binary formation process cannot be entirely independent of scale. ---- but the lack of high-eccentricity orbits in somewhat wider systems [than for orbital circularization, FL] remains a puzzle.”

The twenty pre-main sequence binaries reported by Clarke (op sit) are explainable.  In fact, as the model requires the core of the protostar to be ejected immediately prior to the development of the ensuing star it is a necessary part of the model that there be “binaries in their stellar youth”.  “Such stars are probably less than a million years old, so that binaries can evidently form very early in the stellar evolution process (R. Mathieu, University of Wisconsin).”  (Clarke op sit.)  The suggested model requires exactly this.  “—It is among these systems [pre-main sequence binaries in regions of star formation, FL], with separations in the range ten to several hundred astronomical units (----), that there would appear to be an excess of binaries compared with main-sequence counts ---- it poses a number of questions: either a large number of systems are being missed in mid-sequence surveys or else many binaries in this separation range are somehow destroyed during their main-sequence lifetimes.”  The model requires at least some of the ejected star companions to break up into planets and so there should be an excess of binaries pre-main sequence compared with main sequence.

Finally, the hypothesis can also explain why some stars have a gas/dust disc surrounding them; without the disc necessarily being the precursor of planets.  It can be envisaged that in some cases a protostar may form as a sphere or an ellipsoid of small ellipticity so that the escape velocity would be reached simultaneously along a long length of its circumference, and probably over a reasonably broad band of low latitude.  Also, the core, even if it was not at the centre of the protostar, would be displaced only a relatively small amount so that insufficient energy would be available to eject the core.  The result would be for only surface material to be repelled outwards and some of this material would move outwards sufficiently slowly to be captured by the forming star.  Thus the star would become surrounded by a disc.  Obviously, occasional stars must form which bridge the difference between both types and so exhibit both disc and partner(s).  (The Sun, itself, has a weak disc and can be explained by similar reasoning.)

In the writer’s opinion the model derived from the hypothesis gives an adequate explanation of binary star frequency and distribution and of discs and so can be used as a basis for their study.  However, this is not germane to the topic of the paper and so will not be developed further.