Prevalence of Streamer-like Structures around Protostellar Disks

🔍 Keywords: star formation, disk formation, accretion streamers

👨 Supervisor: 賴詩萍 (Shih-Ping Lai) - National Tsing Hua University (NTHU), Travis Thieme (ASIAA), Tien-Hao Hsieh (ASIAA)

👥 Number of Students: 2 (Max: 2)

📖 Project Description

Understanding the physics governing protostellar disk formation is essential for advancing our knowledge of star and planet formation. Recent high-sensitivity observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have revealed the presence of "accretion streamers"—filamentary structures connecting the envelope to the disk (Hsieh C.H. et al. 2020; Thieme et al. 2022; Hsieh T.H. et al. 2023). However, the role of these streamers in mass transport onto protostellar disks remains a topic of debate.

This project aims to assess the prevalence of streamer-like structures around protostellar disks by analyzing ALMA and Submillimeter Array (SMA) observations of protostars in the Perseus Molecular Cloud. By systematically investigating these structures, we seek to determine whether they are a common feature of disk formation or an observational anomaly.

📚 Required Background