In this series of papers, we study the structure of the atomic-to- molecular transition in the giant atomic-molecular complexes that are the repositories of most molecular gas in galaxies, with the ...ultimate goal of attaining a better understanding of what determines galaxies' molecular content. Here we derive an approximate analytic solution for the structure of a photodissociation region (PDR) in a cloud of finite size that is bathed in an external dissociating radiation field. Our solution extends previous work, which with few exceptions has been restricted to a one-dimensional treatment of the radiation field. We show that our analytic results compare favorably to exact numerical calculations in the one-dimensional limit. However, our more general geometry provides a more realistic representation than a semi- infinite slab for atomic-molecular complexes exposed to the interstellar radiation field, particularly in environments such as low-metallicity dwarf galaxies, where the curvature and finite size of the atomic envelope cannot be neglected. For clouds that are at least 20% molecular, we obtain analytic expressions for the molecular fraction in terms of properties of the gas and radiation field that are accurate to tens of percent, while for clouds of lower molecular content we obtain upper limits. As a side benefit, our analysis helps to clarify when self-shielding is the dominant process in H sub(2) formation, and under what circumstances shielding by dust makes a significant contribution.
We present dark matter minihalo models for the Ultra-Compact, High-Velocity H I Clouds (UCHVCs) recently discovered in the 21 cm ALFALFA survey. We assume gravitational confinement of 104 K H I gas ...by flat-cored dark-matter subhalos within the Local Group. Flat-cored subhalos also resolve the mass discrepancy between simulated and observed satellites around the Milky Way. For the UCHVCs, we calculate the photoionization-limited hydrostatic gas profiles for any distance-dependent total observed H I mass and predict the associated (projected) H I half-mass radii, assuming the clouds are embedded in distant (d gap 300 kpc) and unstripped subhalos. We derive an upper limit of P sub(HIM) lap 150 cm super(-3) K for the pressure of any enveloping hot intergalactic medium gas at the distance of Leo T. Our analysis suggests that some of the UCHVCs may in fact constitute a population of 21 cm-selected but optically faint dwarf galaxies in the Local Group.
We present three orion simulations of star cluster formation in a 1000 M, turbulent molecular cloud clump, including the effects of radiative transfer, protostellar outflows, and magnetic fields. Our ...simulations all use self-consistent turbulent initial conditions and vary the mean mass-to-flux ratio relative to the critical value over μΦ = 2, μΦ = 10, and μΦ = ∞ to gauge the influence of magnetic fields on star cluster formation. We find, in good agreement with previous studies, that magnetic fields corresponding to μΦ = 2 lower the star formation rate by a factor of 2.4 and reduce the amount of fragmentation by a factor of 2 relative to the zero-field case. We also find that the field increases the characteristic sink particle mass, again by a factor of 2.4. The magnetic field also increases the degree of clustering in our simulations, such that the maximum stellar densities in the μΦ = 2 case are higher than the others by again a factor of 2. This clustering tends to encourage the formation of multiple systems, which are more common in the rad-MHD runs than the rad-hydro run. The companion frequency in our simulations is consistent with observations of multiplicity in Class I sources, particularly for the μΦ = 2 case. Finally, we find evidence of primordial mass segregation in our simulations reminiscent of that observed in star clusters like the Orion Nebula Cluster.
We present semianalytic dynamical models for giant molecular clouds evolving under the influence of H II regions launched by newborn star clusters. In contrast to previous work, we neither assume ...that clouds are in virial or energetic equilibrium, nor do we ignore the effects of star formation feedback. The clouds, which we treat as spherical, can expand and contract homologously. Photoionization drives mass ejection; the recoil of cloud material both stirs turbulent motions and leads to an effective confining pressure. The balance between these effects and the decay of turbulent motions through isothermal shocks determines clouds' dynamical and energetic evolution. We find that for realistic values of the rates of turbulent dissipation, photoevaporation, and energy injection by H II regions, the massive clouds where most molecular gas in the Galaxy resides live for a few crossing times, in good agreement with recent observational estimates that large clouds in Local Group galaxies survive roughly 20-30 Myr. During this time clouds remain close to equilibrium, with virial parameters of 1-3 and column densities near 10 super(22) H atoms cm super(-2), also in agreement with observed cloud properties. Over their lives they convert 5%-10% of their mass into stars, after which point most clouds are destroyed when a large H II region unbinds them. In contrast, small clouds like those found in the solar neighborhood only survive 61 crossing time before being destroyed.
ABSTRACT
Optical and infrared polarization mapping and recent Planck observations of the filametary cloud L1495 in Taurus show that the large-scale magnetic field is approximately perpendicular to ...the long axis of the cloud. We use the HAWC + polarimeter on SOFIA to probe the complex magnetic field in the B211 part of the cloud. Our results reveal a dispersion of polarization angles of 36°, about five times that measured on a larger scale by Planck. Applying the Davis–Chandrasekhar–Fermi (DCF) method with velocity information obtained from Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique 30 m C18O(1-0) observations, we find two distinct sub-regions with magnetic field strengths differing by more than a factor 3. The quieter sub-region is magnetically critical and sub-Alfv$\acute{\rm e}$nic; the field is comparable to the average field measured in molecular clumps based on Zeeman observations. The more chaotic, super-Alfv$\acute{\rm e}$nic sub-region shows at least three velocity components, indicating interaction among multiple substructures. Its field is much less than the average Zeeman field in molecular clumps, suggesting that the DCF value of the field there may be an underestimate. Numerical simulation of filamentary cloud formation shows that filamentary substructures can strongly perturb the magnetic field. DCF and true field values in the simulation are compared. Pre-stellar cores are observed in B211 and are seen in our simulation. The appendices give a derivation of the standard DCF method that allows for a dispersion in polarization angles that is not small, present an alternate derivation of the structure function version of the DCF method, and treat fragmentation of filaments.
The turbulent environment from which stars form may lead to misalignment between the stellar spin and the remnant protoplanetary disc. By using hydrodynamic and magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we ...demonstrate that a wide range of stellar obliquities may be produced as a by-product of forming a star within a turbulent environment. We present a simple semi-analytic model that reveals this connection between the turbulent motions and the orientation of a star and its disc. Our results are consistent with the observed obliquity distribution of hot Jupiters. Migration of misaligned hot Jupiters may, therefore, be due to tidal dissipation in the disc, rather than tidal dissipation of the star–planet interaction.
Forming stars emit a substantial amount of radiation into their natal environment. We use ORION, an adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) three-dimensional gravito-radiation-hydrodyanics code, to simulate ...low-mass star formation in a turbulent molecular cloud. We compare the distributions of stellar masses, accretion rates, and temperatures in the cases with and without radiative transfer, and we demonstrate that radiative feedback has a profound effect on accretion, multiplicity, and mass by reducing the number of stars formed and the total rate at which gas turns into stars. We also show that once the star formation reaches a steady state, protostellar radiation is by far the dominant source of energy in the simulation, exceeding viscous dissipation and compressional heating by at least an order of magnitude. Calculations that omit radiative feedback from protstars significantly underestimate the gas temperature and the strength of this effect. Although heating from protostars is mainly confined to the protostellar cores, we find that it is sufficient to suppress disk fragmentation that would otherwise result in very low-mass companions or brown dwarfs. We demonstrate that the mean protostellar accretion rate increases with the final stellar mass so that the star formation time is only a weak function of mass.
Nearby spiral galaxies show an extremely tight correlation between tracers of molecular hydrogen (H2) in the interstellar medium and tracers of recent star formation, but it is unclear whether this ...correlation is fundamental or accidental. In the galaxies that have been surveyed to date, H2 resides predominantly in gravitationally bound clouds cooled by carbon monoxide (CO) molecules, but in galaxies of low metal content the correlations between bound clouds, CO, and H2 break down, and it is unclear if the star formation rate (SFR) will then correlate with H2 or with some other quantity. Here, we show that star formation will continue to follow H2 independent of metallicity. This is not because H2 is directly important for cooling, but instead because the transition from predominantly atomic hydrogen (H I) to H2 occurs under the same conditions as a dramatic drop in gas temperature and Bonnor-Ebert mass that destabilizes clouds and initiates collapse. We use this model to compute how SFR will correlate with total gas mass, with mass of gas where the hydrogen is H2, and with mass of gas where the carbon is CO in galaxies of varying metallicity, and show that preliminary observations match the trend we predict.
As star-forming clouds collapse, the gas within them fragments to ever-smaller masses. Naively one might expect this process to continue down to the smallest mass that is able to radiate away its ...binding energy on a dynamical time-scale, the opacity limit for fragmentation, at ∼0.01 M⊙. However, the observed peak of the initial mass function (IMF) lies a factor of 20–30 higher in mass, suggesting that some other mechanism halts fragmentation before the opacity limit is reached. In this paper we analyse radiation-magnetohydrodynamic simulations of star cluster formation in typical Milky Way environments in order to determine what physical process limits fragmentation in them. We examine the regions in the vicinity of stars that form in the simulations to determine the amounts of mass that are prevented from fragmenting by thermal and magnetic pressure. We show that, on small scales, thermal pressure enhanced by stellar radiation heating is the dominant mechanism limiting the ability of the gas to further fragment. In the brown dwarf mass regime, ∼0.01 M⊙, the typical object that forms in the simulations is surrounded by gas whose mass is several times its own that is unable to escape or fragment, and instead is likely to accrete. This mechanism explains why ∼0.01 M⊙ objects are rare: unless an outside agent intervenes (e.g. a shock strips away the gas around them), they will grow by accreting the warmed gas around them. In contrast, by the time stars grow to masses of ∼0.2 M⊙, the mass of heated gas is only tens of percent of the central star mass, too small to alter its final mass by a large factor. This naturally explains why the IMF peak is at ∼0.2 M⊙.
We present a set of three-dimensional, radiation-magnetohydrodynamic calculations of the gravitational collapse of massive (300 M sub(middot in circle)), star-forming molecular cloud cores. We show ...that the combined effects of magnetic fields and radiative feedback strongly suppress core fragmentation, leading to the production of single-star systems rather than small clusters. We find that the two processes are efficient at suppressing fragmentation in different regimes, with the feedback most effective in the dense, central region and the magnetic field most effective in more diffuse, outer regions. Thus, the combination of the two is much more effective at suppressing fragmentation than either one considered in isolation. Our work suggests that typical massive cores, which have mass-to-flux ratios of about 2 relative to critical, likely form a single-star system, but that cores with weaker fields may form a small star cluster. This result helps us understand why the observed relationship between the core mass function and the stellar initial mass function holds even for ~100 M sub(middot in circle) cores with many thermal Jeans masses of material. We also demonstrate that a ~40 AU Keplerian disk is able to form in our simulations, despite the braking effect caused by the strong magnetic field.
PDF
