Collapse of the presolar nebula

The hydrodynamical axially symmetric collapse of a 3M -cloud with an initial density of 10^–20 g cm^–3 has been investigated. In order to first arrive at an equilibrium configuration a temperature of 15 K has been assumed. During about 9 free-fall times the cloud has artificially been cooled down to the (Jeans-) critical temperature of 8 K. Thus, the dynamical collapse studied in this paper starts from an equilibrium configuration following a slow quasi-hydrostatic contraction. Two sequences corresponding to a different choice of the initial angular velocity _i = 10^–14 s^–1 (Case A) and _i = 10^–15 s^–1 (Case B) have been computed. In both cases a fast spinning, optically thick disk-like core of low mass and temperature forms for which fission into two or even more pieces is very likely to occur.Paper presented at the Conference on Protostars and Planets, held at the Planetary Science Institute, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, between January 3 and 7, 1978.