Line-Driven Ablation of Circumstellar Disks around Luminous, Massive Stars

Nathaniel Dylan Kee (University of Delaware) 13.04.2015

Circumstellar disks act as mass and angular momentum transport channels for their host star; for example they mediate both the accretion during the pre-main sequence phase of star formation, and the ``decretion’’ from the rapidly-rotating main sequence phase of ``Classical Be stars’’. In luminous, high-mass stars, the disk material is subject to strong radiation forces imparted through line scattering opacity. While this line force is known to generate strong wind outflows from such stars, its effect on disk material has not yet been well studied. This talk will describe radiation-hydrodynamics simulations of ``line-driven ablation’’ of the relatively low density, optically thin decretion disks around Classical Be stars, and outline methods for modeling the ablation of much denser, optically thick accretion disks around pre-main sequence objects.