No Arabic abstract
The gravitational instability of expanding shells triggering the formation of clouds and stars is analyzed. Disks with different scale-heights, ambient and shell velocity dispersions, mid-plane densities, rotation rates and shear rates are explored with three dimensional numerical simulations in the thin shell approximation. Three conditions for the shell collapse are specified: the first is that it happens before a significant blow-out, the second requires that the shell collapses before it is distorted by Coriolis forces and shear, and the third requires that the internal pressure in the accumulated gas is small and the fragmentation is achieved within the expansion time. The gas-rich and slowly rotating galaxies are the best sites of the triggered star formation, concluding that its importance has been much larger at the times of galaxy formation compared to the present epoch.
The star formation triggered in dense walls of expanding shells will be discussed. The fragmentation process is studied using the linear and non-linear perturbation theory. The influence of the energy input, the ISM distribution and the speed of sound is examined analytically and by numerical simulations. We formulate the condition for the gravitational fragmentation of expanding shells: if the total surface density of the disc is higher than a certain critical value, shells are unstable. This value depends on the energy of the shell and the sound speed in the ISM. As an example the formation of OB associations near the Sun will be discussed. We trace their orbits in the Milky Way to see where they have been born: 10 - 12 Myr ago progenitors of Scorpius-Centaurus OB associations and the Orion OB association resided together within a sheet-like region elongated in the $l = 20-200degrees direction, showing that the local OB associations may be formed as fragments of an expanding supershell.
Galaxy pairs provide a potentially powerful means of studying triggered star formation from galaxy interactions. We use a large cosmological N-body simulation coupled with a well-tested semi-analytic substructure model to demonstrate that the majority of galaxies in close pairs reside within cluster or group-size halos and therefore represent a biased population, poorly suited for direct comparison to ``field galaxies. Thus, the frequent observation that some types of galaxies in pairs have redder colors than ``field galaxies is primarily a selection effect. We select galaxy pairs that are isolated in their dark matter halos with respect to other massive subhalos (N=2 halos) and a control sample of isolated galaxies (N=1 halos) for comparison. We then apply these selection criteria to a volume-limited subset of the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey with M_Bj <= -19 and obtain the first clean measure of the typical fraction of galaxies affected by triggered star formation and the average elevation in the star formation rate. We find that 24% (30.5%) of these L^star and sub-L^{star} galaxies in isolated 50 (30) kpc/h pairs exhibit star formation that is boosted by a factor of >~ 5 above their average past value, while only 10% of isolated galaxies in the control sample show this level of enhancement. Thus, 14% (20 %) of the galaxies in these close pairs show clear triggered star formation. The isolation criteria we develop provide a means to constrain star formation and feedback prescriptions in hydrodynamic simulations and a very general method of understanding the importance of triggered star formation in a cosmological context. (Abridged.)
We discuss fragmentation processes which induce star formation in dense walls of expanding shells. The influence of the energy input, the ISM scale-height and speed of sound in the ambient medium is tested. We formulate the condition for the gravitational fragmentation of expanding shells: if the total surface density of the disc is higher than a certain critical value, shells are unstable. The value of the critical density depends on the energy of the shell and the sound speed in the ISM.
We present causal and positional evidence of triggered star formation in bright-rimmed clouds in OB associations, e.g., Ori OB1, and Lac OB1, by photoionization. The triggering process is seen also on a much larger scale in the Orion-Monoceros Complex by the Orion-Eridanus Superbubble. We also show how the positioning of young stellar groups surrounding the H II region associated with Trumpler 16 in Carina Nebula supports the triggering process of star formation by the collect-and-collapse scenario.
The origin of the stellar initial mass function (IMF) is a fundamental issue in the theory of star formation. It is generally fit with a composite power law. Some clues on the progenitors can be found in dense starless cores that have a core mass function (CMF) with a similar shape. In the low-mass end, these mass functions increase with mass, albeit the sample may be somewhat incomplete; in the high-mass end, the mass functions decrease with mass. There is an offset in the turn-over mass between the two mass distributions. The stellar mass for the IMF peak is lower than the corresponding core mass for the CMF peak in the Pipe Nebula by about a factor of three. Smaller offsets are found between the IMF and the CMFs in other nebulae. We suggest that the offset is likely induced during a starburst episode of global star formation which is triggered by the formation of a few O/B stars in the multi-phase media, which naturally emerged through the onset of thermal instability in the cloud-core formation process. We consider the scenario that the ignition of a few massive stars photoionizes the warm medium between the cores, increases the external pressure, reduces their Bonnor?Ebert mass, and triggers the collapse of some previously stable cores. We quantitatively reproduce the IMF in the low-mass end with the assumption of additional rotational fragmentation.