Using FU Orionis outbursts to constrain self-regulated protostellar disk models

Abstract

One dimensional, convective, vertical structure models and one dimensional, time dependent, radial diffusion models are combined to create a self-consistent picture in which FU~Orionis outbursts occur in young stellar objects (YSOs) as the result of a large scale, self-regulated, thermal ionization instability in the surrounding protostellar accretion disk. By fitting the results of time dependent disk models to observed time scales of FU~Orionis events, we estimate the magnitude of the effeciency of the effective viscous stress in the inner disk (r < 1 AU) to be, in accordance with the ad hoc ``alpha'' prescription, 10^{-4} where hydrogen is neutral and 10^{-3} where hydrogen is ionized. We hypothesize that all YSOs receive infall onto their outer disks which is steady (or slowly declining with time) and that FU~Orionis outbursts are self-regulated, disk outbursts which occur only in systems which transport matter inward at a rate sufficiently high to cause hydrogen to be ionized in the inner disk. We estimate a critical mass flux of 5x10^{-7} solar masses / year {\it independent of the magnitude of alpha} for systems with one solar mass, three solar radius central objects. Infall accretion rates in the range of (1-10)x10^{-6} solar masses per year produce observed FU~Orionis time scales consistent with estimates of spherical molecular cloud core collapse rates.