Antonella NATTA : INAF-Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri
Accretion and the history of disks
Accretion disks are common around young stars of all mass, from few solar masses down to very low mass objects and brown dwarfs. Disks form during the collapse of the molecular core, from which the star is born, and last well beyond this initial phase, when the core has dispersed and the star has acquired most of its final mass. Accretion disks are the birthplace of planets, whose formation and evolution are controlled by the disk physics.
In this talk, I will review our knowledge of the mass accretion rate in disks, and discuss the implications of the results for the disk properties and their evolution in time.
Last modified: Sun Jul 9 18:06:08 2006