Oral Presentation

Planet formation in massive stellar clusters

Author(s): Queen Mary University of London

Presenter: Qiao Lin (Queen Mary University of London)

There has been increasing acknowledgement that most stars (and their protoplanetary discs) form in massive stellar clusters. The UV radiation field emitted by the massive stars in such clusters can affect protoplanetary discs via external photoevaporation, where UV radiation heats and disperses material from disc surfaces. Past planet formation and evolution models generally use either extended long-lived discs neglecting external photoevaporation, or include some prescription of external photoevaporation that is tuned to produce disc lifetimes consistent with observations. However, realistically the interplay between the ongoing star formation and disc evolution/planet formation in a dynamically evolving cluster is much more complicated. Stars form at different times and locations in clusters, with some stars being initially embedded in star forming clouds that later disperse. This means discs around stars in a cluster experience time varying radiation fields, with some discs being initially shielded from strong radiation for various periods. Recently I performed the first calculations modelling disc evolution in a stellar cluster formation and feedback simulation model (Qiao et al. 2022). I will discuss the impacts of the time varying UV radiation and shielding of the clouds on disc evolution, and new work in which we investigate the impacts on planet formation simulated with n-body models based on Coleman & Nelson (2014) code. The goal is to eventually determine how, when and where a star forms in a cluster impacts planetary architectures (Qiao et al. in prep.).