Radiation Pressure-supported Starburst Disks and Active Galactic Nucleus Fueling

By T. Thompson, E. Quataert, N. Murray. 2005

621 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We consider the structure of marginally Toomre-stable starburst disks under the assumption that radiation pressure on dust grains provides the dominant vertical support against gravity. This assumption is particularly appropriate when the disk is optically thick to its own infrared radiation, as in the central regions of ULIRGs. We argue that because the disk radiates at its Eddington limit (for dust), the "Schmidt law" for star formation changes in the optically thick limit, with the star formation rate per unit area scaling as ⋆ ∝ Σg/κ, where Σg is the gas surface density and κ is the mean opacity of the disk. Our calculations further show that optically thick starburst disks have a characteristic flux, star formation rate per unit area, and dust effective temperature of F ~ 1013 L☉ kpc-2, ⋆ ~ 103 M☉ yr-1 kpc-2, and Teff ~ 90 K, respectively. We compare our model predictions with observations of ULIRGs and find good agreement. We extend our model of starburst disks from many hundred parsec scales to subparsec scales and address the problem of fueling AGNs. We assume that angular momentum transport proceeds via global torques (e.g., spiral waves, winds, or a central bar) rather than a local viscosity. We consistently account for the radial depletion of gas due to star formation and find a strong bifurcation between two classes of disk models: (1) solutions with a starburst on large scales that consumes all of the gas with little or no fueling of a central AGN and (2) models with an outer large-scale starburst accompanied by a more compact starburst on 1-10 pc scales and a bright central AGN. The luminosity of the latter models is in many cases dominated by the AGN, although these disk solutions exhibit a broad mid- to far-infrared peak from star formation. We show that the vertical thickness of the starburst disk on parsec scales can approach h ~ r, perhaps accounting for the nuclear obscuration in some type 2 AGNs. We also argue that the disk of young stars in the Galactic center may be the remnant of such a compact nuclear starburst.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5cff4a9843e4aac1e5fe9646a124cba88ea63da0

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. Hopkins
2. L. Hernquist
3. E. Quataert
4. R. Dav'e
5. Volker Springel
6. R. Somerville
7. A. Dekel
8. Thomas J. Cox

Citations in the corpus

• Supernova feedback in an inhomogeneous interstellar medium (2014, methodology): “This quantity (or others like it) is used in analytic models of star formation regulation by stellar feedback (e.g. Thompson et al. 2005; Ostriker & Shetty 2011; Faucher-Giguère et al. 2013).”
• The physics of galactic winds driven by active galactic nuclei (2012, background): “Dust in the central regions of ULIRGs is also generally optically thick to the UV photons that dominate the radiative output of AGN, as well as to reprocessed infrared radiation (e.g., Scoville 2003; Thompson et al. 2005).”
• FEEDBACK FROM CENTRAL BLACK HOLES IN ELLIPTICAL GALAXIES. III. MODELS WITH BOTH RADIATIVE AND MECHANICAL FEEDBACK (2010, background): “As this falls towards the center, a starburst occurs of the type described by Thompson et al. (2005), and the galaxy seen as an ULIRG.”
• THE SINS SURVEY OF z ∼ 2 GALAXY KINEMATICS: PROPERTIES OF THE GIANT STAR-FORMING CLUMPS (2010, background): “…that the very active high-z SFGs are naturally driven toward marginal gravitational instability (Q ∼ 1) by self-regulation (Quirk 1972; Gammie 2001; Thompson et al. 2005), the dominant agents responsible for the required (and observed) high-velocity dispersions are not known, and possibly…”
• A General Theory of Turbulence-regulated Star Formation, from Spirals to Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (2005, background): “In starbursts, the feedback mechanism probably changes over from supernovae to radiation pressure (Thompson et al. 2005), but the effect is similar.”
• An analytic model of angular momentum transport by gravitational torques: from galaxies to massive black holes (2010, background): “…often assume simple models such as Eddingtonlimited accretion for a fixed timescale, spherical Bondi accretion (Springel et al. 2005; Di Matteo et al. 2005), local viscous transport (e.g., Sirko & Goodman 2003; Debuhr et al. 2010), or linear transport by spiral waves (e.g., Thompson et al. 2005).”
• SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy of z ~ 2 UV-selected Galaxies: Rotation Curves and Dynamical Evolution (2006, background): “An alternative scenario is that of an actively star-forming disk in which stellar winds, supernova explosions, and radiation pressure are responsible for setting the velocity dispersion and providing vertical support against gravity (Thompson et al. 2005).”
• A UNIVERSAL, LOCAL STAR FORMATION LAW IN GALACTIC CLOUDS, NEARBY GALAXIES, HIGH-REDSHIFT DISKS, AND STARBURSTS (2011, positive): “A number of authors have proposed models to estimate the mean ISM density in this regime (Thompson et al. 2005; Krumholz & McKee 2005; Krumholz et al. 2009; Ostriker & Shetty 2011), and we will adopt the estimate of Krumholz & McKee (2005).”
• Radiative Feedback from Massive Black Holes in Elliptical Galaxies: AGN Flaring and Central Starburst Fueled by Recycled Gas (2007, background): “…mimic the destruction of dust at high temperatures (T. Thompson & B. Draine 2006, private communication); the dust opacity we are using is likely a lower bound to the true value, while a more accurate treatment can be found in Thompson et al. (2005) and will be implemented in future explorations.”
• An ALMA [C ii] Survey of 27 Quasars at z > 5.94 (2018, background): “The implied star formation rate surface densities, SSFR, can be extremely high (∼1000 M yr −1 kpc−2), and might even reach the Eddington limit for star formation (Scoville 2004; Thompson et al. 2005; Walter et al. 2009).”
• MAXIMALLY STAR-FORMING GALACTIC DISKS. I. STARBURST REGULATION VIA FEEDBACK-DRIVEN TURBULENCE (2011, background): “For the radiation-dominated limit, an equivalent expression to our result was previously obtained (under somewhat different assumptions) by Thompson et al. (2005) (see their equation 28), and they also noted that optically-thin disks are expected to have a steeper dependence of ΣSFR on Σ than…”
• UNLEASHING POSITIVE FEEDBACK: LINKING THE RATES OF STAR FORMATION, SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLE ACCRETION, AND OUTFLOWS IN DISTANT GALAXIES (2013, background): “Let us assume a disk geometry for the gas, following the discussion of Thompson et al. (2005).”
• Massive molecular outflows and evidence for AGN feedback from CO observations (2013, background): “…associated with the energy injected into the ISM by SNe explosions, and “momentum driven”, generally associated with radiation pressure from the young stellar population on the dusty clouds (Murray et al. 2005, 2011; Thompson et al. 2005; Oppenheimer & Davé 2006, 2008; Hopkins et al. 2012).”