OUTFLOW FEEDBACK REGULATED MASSIVE STAR FORMATION IN PARSEC-SCALE CLUSTER-FORMING CLUMPS

By Peng Wang, Zhi-Yun Li, Tom Abel, F. Nakamura. 2009

264 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We investigate massive star formation in turbulent, magnetized, parsec-scale clumps of molecular clouds including protostellar outflow feedback using three-dimensional numerical simulations of effective resolution 20483. The calculations are carried out using a block structured adaptive mesh refinement code that solves the ideal magnetohydrodynamic equations including self-gravity and implements accreting sink particles. We find that, in the absence of regulation by magnetic fields and outflow feedback, massive stars form readily in a turbulent, moderately condensed clump of ∼1600 M☉ (containing ∼102 initial Jeans masses), along with a cluster of hundreds of lower mass stars. The massive stars are fed at high rates by (1) transient dense filaments produced by large-scale turbulent compression at early times and (2) by the clump-wide global collapse resulting from turbulence decay at late times. In both cases, the bulk of the massive star's mass is supplied from outside a 0.1 pc-sized “core” that surrounds the star. In our simulation, the massive star is clump-fed rather than core-fed. The need for large-scale feeding makes the massive star formation prone to regulation by outflow feedback, which directly opposes the feeding processes. The outflows reduce the mass accretion rates onto the massive stars by breaking up the dense filaments that feed the massive star formation at early times, and by collectively slowing down the global collapse that fuels the massive star formation at late times. The latter is aided by a moderate magnetic field of strength in the observed range (corresponding to a dimensionless clump mass-to-flux ratio λ∼ a few); the field allows the outflow momenta to be deposited more efficiently inside the clump. We conclude that the massive star formation in our simulated turbulent, magnetized, parsec-scale clump is outflow-regulated and clump-fed. An important implication is that the formation of low-mass stars in a dense clump can affect the formation of massive stars in the same clump, through their outflow feedback on the clump dynamics. In a companion paper, we discuss the properties of the lower mass cluster members formed along with the massive stars, including their mass distribution and spatial clustering.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/be9382dc127b04d0e4480bd26c282c5d65c909d4

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Citations in the corpus

Accretion-driven turbulence as universal process: galaxies, molecular clouds, and protostellar disks (2009, background): “…(Hunter et al. 1986; Vishniac 1994), or driven by internal sources such as protostellar outflows (Li & Nakamura 2006; Banerjee et al. 2007; Nakamura & Li 2008; Wang et al. 2010) or expanding HII regions (Matzner 2002) or supernovae (Mac Low & Klessen 2004), is still subject to considerable debate.”
ON THE STAR FORMATION EFFICIENCY OF TURBULENT MAGNETIZED CLOUDS (2012, background): “Theoretical, numerical, and observational estimates suggest that = 0.25–0.7 (Matzner & McKee 2000; Wang et al. 2010; Beuther et al. 2002).”
Stellar, brown dwarf and multiple star properties from a radiation hydrodynamical simulation of star cluster formation (2011, background): “…in globally unbound molecular clouds (Clark & Bonnell 2004; Clark et al. 2005), or that magnetic support (Price & Bate 2008, 2009), kinetic feedback (Matzner & McKee 2000; Krumholz, Matzner & McKee 2006; Nakamura & Li 2007) or a combination (e.g. Wang et al. 2010) reduces the star formation rate.”
The stellar and sub-stellar IMF of simple and composite populations (2011, background): “…(Krumholz et al. 2009), the fragmentation-induced starvation model (Peters et al. 2010, 2011b), and the outflow-regulated clump collapse model (Wang et al. 2010), where massive stars result from the collapse of turbulent cluster-forming clumps, whose internal dynamics are regulated by…”
Feedback from winds and supernovae in massive stellar clusters – I. Hydrodynamics (2012, unknown): “S R ] 1 1 Fe b 20 Matzner 2002; Wang et al. 2010; Lopez et al. 2011; Pellegrini et al. 2011).”
COLLAPSE OF MASSIVE MAGNETIZED DENSE CORES USING RADIATION MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS: EARLY FRAGMENTATION INHIBITION (2011, background): “…isothermal simulations (e.g., Bonnell et al. 2001; Bonnell & Bate 2006) and radiative calculations (Krumholz et al. 2007, 2009), magnetized ones (Wang et al. 2010; Hennebelle et al. 2011; Peters et al. 2011; Seifried et al. 2011) and even calculations including radiative ionization (Peters et…”
THE STAR FORMATION RATE OF TURBULENT MAGNETIZED CLOUDS: COMPARING THEORY, SIMULATIONS, AND OBSERVATIONS (2012, background): “For example, we expect the amount of accreted gas to be reduced, if feedback were included (e.g., Wang et al. 2010; Peters et al. 2011).”
Turbulent molecular clouds (2012, background): “The inclusion of the feedback from protostellar jets has been considered by Nakamura & Li (2007) and Wang et al. (2010).”
Three-phase Interstellar Medium in Galaxies Resolving Evolution with Star Formation and Supernova Feedback (TIGRESS): Algorithms, Fiducial Model, and Convergence (2016, background): “Protostellar outflows and jets driven in the course of low-mass star formation may also contribute to supporting the parent molecular cloud, and extending its life (e.g., Wang et al. 2010; Frank et al. 2014).”
WHAT DRIVES THE EXPANSION OF GIANT H ii REGIONS?: A STUDY OF STELLAR FEEDBACK IN 30 DORADUS (2010, background): “…(e.g., Whitworth 1979; Dale et al. 2005), the hot gas shock heated by stellar winds and supernovae (e.g., Yorke et al. 1989; Harper-Clark & Murray 2009), and protostellar outflows/jets (e.g., Quillen et al. 2005; Cunningham et al. 2006; Li & Nakamura 2006; Nakamura & Li 2008; Wang et al. 2010).”
On the universality of interstellar filaments: theory meets simulations and observations (2015, methodology): “Our feedback module has been carefully tested and compared to previous implementations of jet/outflow feedback such as the models implemented in Wang et al. (2010) and Cunningham et al. (2011).”
On the fraction of star formation occurring in bound stellar clusters (2012, methodology): “A more realistic treatment of feedback (see e.g. Wang et al. 2010; Krumholz et al. 2012) may work in two ways.”
On the universality of supersonic turbulence (2013, background): “Wind, jets and outflows from young stellar objects have also been suggested to drive turbulence on smaller scales (Norman & Silk 1980; Banerjee, Klessen & Fendt 2007; Nakamura & Li 2008; Cunningham et al. 2009; Carroll, Frank & Blackman 2010; Wang et al. 2010; Moraghan, Kim & Yoon 2013).”
ENZO: AN ADAPTIVE MESH REFINEMENT CODE FOR ASTROPHYSICS (2013, methodology): “This class of solvers, as well as a version of the PPM hydro solver, has been ported to nVidia’s CUDA framework, allowing Enzo to take advantage of modern graphics hardware (Wang et al. 2010).”
MODELING COLLAPSE AND ACCRETION IN TURBULENT GAS CLOUDS: IMPLEMENTATION AND COMPARISON OF SINK PARTICLES IN AMR AND SPH (2010, methodology): “…Eulerian, uniform grid implementation by Padoan & Nordlund (2009) use the density threshold check, the refinement check (only Krumholz et al. 2004; Wang et al. 2010) and the converging flow check (only the total divergence is required to be negative, which is implicitly covered by the density…”
On the diversity and statistical properties of protostellar discs (2018, background): “Magnetic pressure support can slow down the star formation rate by factors of 2–3 compared to hydrodynamical calculations (Price & Bate 2008, 2009; Wang et al. 2010; Padoan & Nordlund 2011; Federrath & Klessen 2012; Myers et al. 2014; Federrath 2015), but its affect on disc properties is unclear.”
REPRODUCING THE STELLAR MASS/HALO MASS RELATION IN SIMULATED ΛCDM GALAXIES: THEORY VERSUS OBSERVATIONAL ESTIMATES (2012, background): “While feedback from SNe remains still poorly understood, its effects are being observed over a large range of redshifts and galaxy masses (Martin 1999; Wang et al. 2010).”