ترغب بنشر مسار تعليمي؟ اضغط هنا

Can Hydrostatic Cores Form Within Isothermal Molecular Clouds?

89   0   0.0 ( 0 )
 نشر من قبل Enrique Vazquez-Semadeni
 تاريخ النشر 2002
  مجال البحث فيزياء
والبحث باللغة English




اسأل ChatGPT حول البحث

Under the assumptions that molecular clouds are nearly spatially and temporally isothermal and that the density peaks (``cores) within them are formed by turbulent fluctuations, we argue that cores cannot reach a hydrostatic (or magneto-static) state as a consequence of their formation process. In the non-magnetic case, stabilization requires a Bonnor-Ebert truncation at a finite radius, which is not feasible for a single-temperature flow, unless it amounts to a shock, which is clearly a dynamical feature. Instead, in this case, cores must be dynamical entities that can either be pushed into collapse, or else ``rebound towards the mean pressure and density as the parent cloud. Nevertheless, rebounding cores are delayed in their re-expansion by their own self-gravity. We give a crude estimate for the re-expansion time as a function of the closeness of the final compression state to the threshold of instability, finding typical values $sim 1$ Myr, i.e., of the order of a few free-fall times. Our results support the notion that not all cores observed in molecular clouds need to be on route to forming stars, but that instead a class of ``failed cores should exist, which must eventually re-expand and disperse, and which can be identified with observed starless cores. In the magnetic case, recent observational and theoretical work suggests that all cores are critical or supercritical, and are thus qualitatively equivalent to the non-magnetic case. Our results support the notion that the entire star formation process is dynamical, with no intermediate hydrostatic stages.



قيم البحث

اقرأ أيضاً

This paper describes 3D simulations of the formation of collapsing cold clumps via thermal instability inside a larger cloud complex. The initial condition was a diffuse atomic, stationary, thermally unstable, 200pc diameter spherical cloud in pressu re equilibrium with low density surroundings. This was seeded with 10% density perturbations at the finest initial grid level (0.29pc) around n_H = 1.1cm^{-3} and evolved with self-gravity included. No magnetic field was imposed. Resimulations at a higher resolution of a region extracted from this simulation (down to 0.039pc), show that the thermal instability forms sheets, then filaments and finally clumps. The width of the filaments increases over time, in one particular case from 0.26 to 0.56pc. Thereafter clumps with sizes of around 5pc grow at the intersections of filaments. 21 distinct clumps, with properties similar to those observed in molecular clouds, are found by using the FellWalker algorithm to find minima in the gravitational potential. Not all of these are gravitationally bound, but the convergent nature of the flow and increasing central density suggest they are likely to form stars. Further simulation of the most massive clump shows the gravitational collapse to a density >10^6 cm^{-3}. These results provide realistic initial conditions that can be used to study feedback in individual clumps, interacting clumps and the entire molecular cloud complex.
Jets and outflows from young stellar objects are proposed candidates to drive supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds. Here, we present the results from multi-dimensional jet simulations where we investigate in detail the energy and momentum deposi tion from jets into their surrounding environment and quantify the character of the excited turbulence with velocity probability density functions. Our study include jet--clump interaction, transient jets, and magnetised jets. We find that collimated supersonic jets do not excite supersonic motions far from the vicinity of the jet. Supersonic fluctuations are damped quickly and do not spread into the parent cloud. Instead subsonic, non-compressional modes occupy most of the excited volume. This is a generic feature which can not be fully circumvented by overdense jets or magnetic fields. Nevertheless, jets are able to leave strong imprints in their cloud structure and can disrupt dense clumps. Our results question the ability of collimated jets to sustain supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds.
143 - Sami Dib 2006
We study the instantaneous virial balance of clumps and cores (CCs) in 3D simulations of driven, MHD, isothermal molecular clouds (MCs). The models represent a range of magnetic field strengths in MCs from subcritical to non-magnetic regimes. We iden tify CCs at different density thresholds, and for each object, we calculate all the terms that enter the Eulerian form of the virial theorem (EVT). A CC is considered gravitationally bound when the gravitational term in the EVT is larger than the amount for the system to be virialized, which is more stringent than the condition that it be large enough to make the total volume energy negative. We also calculate, quantities commonly used in the observations to indicate the state of gravitational boundedness of CCs such as the Jeans number J_c, the mass-to magnetic flux ratio mu_c, and the virial parameter alpha_vir. Our results show that: a) CCs are dynamical out-of-equilibrium structures. b) The surface energies are of the same order than their volume counterparts c) CCs are either in the process of being compressed or dispersed by the velocity field. Yet, not all CCs that have a compressive net kinetic energy are gravitationally bound. d) There is no 1-to-1 correspondence between the state of gravitational boundedness of a CC as described by the virial analysis or as implied by the classical indicators. In general, in the virial analysis, we observe that only the inner regions of the objects are gravitationally bound, whereas J_c, alpha_vir, and mu_c estimates tend to show that they are more gravitationally bound at the lowest threshold levels and more magnetically supercritical. g) We observe, in the non-magnetic simulation, the existence of a bound core with structural and dynamical properties that resemble those of the Bok globule Barnard 68 (B68).
125 - L.E.Pirogov , I.I.Zinchenko 2009
We have analyzed HCN(1-0) and CS(2-1) line profiles obtained with high signal-to-noise ratios toward distinct positions in three selected objects in order to search for small-scale structure in molecular cloud cores associated with regions of high-ma ss star formation. In some cases, ripples were detected in the line profiles, which could be due to the presence of a large number of unresolved small clumps in the telescope beam. The number of clumps for regions with linear scales of ~0.2-0.5 pc is determined using an analytical model and detailed calculations for a clumpy cloud model; this number varies in the range: ~2 10^4-3 10^5, depending on the source. The clump densities range from ~3 10^5-10^6 cm^{-3}, and the sizes and volume filling factors of the clumps are ~(1-3) 10^{-3} pc and ~0.03-0.12. The clumps are surrounded by inter-clump gas with densities not lower than ~(2-7) 10^4 cm^{-3}. The internal thermal energy of the gas in the model clumps is much higher than their gravitational energy. Their mean lifetimes can depend on the inter-clump collisional rates, and vary in the range ~10^4-10^5 yr. These structures are probably connected with density fluctuations due to turbulence in high-mass star-forming regions.
We present the first results of high-spectral resolution (0.023 km/s) N$_2$H$^+$ observations of dense gas dynamics at core scales (~0.01 pc) using the recently commissioned Argus instrument on the Green Bank Telescope (GBT). While the fitted linear velocity gradients across the cores measured in our targets nicely agree with the well-known power-law correlation between the specific angular momentum and core size, it is unclear if the observed gradients represent core-scale rotation. In addition, our Argus data reveal detailed and intriguing gas structures in position-velocity (PV) space for all 5 targets studied in this project, which could suggest that the velocity gradients previously observed in many dense cores actually originate from large-scale turbulence or convergent flow compression instead of rigid-body rotation. We also note that there are targets in this study with their star-forming disks nearly perpendicular to the local velocity gradients, which, assuming the velocity gradient represents the direction of rotation, is opposite to what is described by the classical theory of star formation. This provides important insight on the transport of angular momentum within star-forming cores, which is a critical topic on studying protostellar disk formation.
التعليقات
جاري جلب التعليقات جاري جلب التعليقات
سجل دخول لتتمكن من متابعة معايير البحث التي قمت باختيارها
mircosoft-partner

هل ترغب بارسال اشعارات عن اخر التحديثات في شمرا-اكاديميا