Numerical simulations of the formation of binary and multiple protostellar disks, starting from dynamic initial conditions

We present numerical simulations of the formation of protostellar disks. The disks form in shocked layers resulting from mildly supersonic collisions between molecular clumps. We describe the physical mechanisms which lead to the majority of these disks being in binary and higher multiple systems. And we suggest that the initial conditions required for these mechanisms to operate are very general, and therefore likely to occur commonly in nature. The simulations were performed using an SPH code