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A protostar is a very young star that is still gathering mass from its parent molecular cloud. It is the earliest phase in the process of stellar evolution . [ 1 ] For a low-mass star (i.e. that of the Sun or lower), it lasts about 500,000 years. [ 2 ]
A star forms by accumulation of material that falls in to a protostar from a circumstellar disk or envelope. Material in the disk is cooler than the surface of the protostar, so it radiates at longer wavelengths of light producing excess infrared emission. As material in the disk is depleted, the infrared excess decreases.
The T Tauri wind — so named because of the young star currently in this stage—is a phenomenon indicative of the phase of stellar development between the accretion of material from the slowing rotating material of a solar nebula and the ignition of the hydrogen that has agglomerated into the protostar.
Representative lifetimes of stars as a function of their masses The change in size with time of a Sun-like star Artist's depiction of the life cycle of a Sun-like star, starting as a main-sequence star at lower left then expanding through the subgiant and giant phases, until its outer envelope is expelled to form a planetary nebula at upper right Chart of stellar evolution
The collapse releases gravitational energy, which heats up the protostar. This process occurs on the free fall timescale, which is roughly 100,000 years for solar-mass protostars, and ends when the protostar reaches approximately 4000 K. This is known as the Hayashi boundary, and at this point, the protostar is on the Hayashi track.
Salpeter defined the mass function as the number of stars in a volume of space observed at a time as per logarithmic mass interval. [2] His work enabled a large number of theoretical parameters to be included in the equation while converging all these parameters into an exponent of α = 2.35 {\displaystyle \alpha =2.35} . [ 1 ]
Star formation theory, as well as accounting for the formation of a single star, must also account for the statistics of binary stars and the initial mass function. Most stars do not form in isolation but as part of a group of stars referred as star clusters or stellar associations. [2]
The energy source of PMS objects is gravitational contraction, as opposed to hydrogen burning in main-sequence stars. In the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram , pre-main-sequence stars with more than 0.5 M ☉ first move vertically downward along Hayashi tracks , then leftward and horizontally along Henyey tracks , until they finally halt at the ...