The evolution of protostars. II - The hydrostatic core

Abstract

A computational scheme is developed for the evolution of an accreting protostellar core. Novel techniques are introduced to account for the dynamical addition of mass and to follow the disparate thermal responses in different parts of the star. Numerical results are presented from two evolutionary calculations that begin with very different distributions of the specific entropy. The two sequences converge rapidly in time, justifying a posteriori the assumption that the final results are insensitive to the detailed mechanism for the formation of the core.