Supernova feedback in an inhomogeneous interstellar medium

By Davide Martizzi, C. Faucher-Giguére, E. Quataert. 2014

223 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Supernova (SN) feedback is one of the key processes shaping the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies. SNe contribute to (and in some cases may dominate) driving turbulence in the ISM and accelerating galactic winds. Modern cosmological simulations have sufficient resolution to capture the main structures in the ISM of galaxies, but are typically still not capable of explicitly resolving all of the small-scale stellar feedback processes, including the expansion of supernova remnants (SNRs). We perform a series of controlled three-dimensional hydrodynamic (adaptive mesh refinement) simulations of single SNRs expanding in an inhomogeneous density field with statistics motivated by those of the turbulent ISM. We use these to quantify the momentum and thermal energy injection from SNe as a function of spatial scale and the density, metallicity, and structure of the ambient medium. We develop a series of analytic formulae that we fit to the simulations. These formulae can be used as a basis for a more predictive sub-resolution model for SN feedback for galaxy formation simulations. We then use simulations of multiple, stochastically driven SNe that resolve the key phases of SNRs to test the sub-resolution model, and show that it accurately captures the turbulent kinetic energy and thermal energy in the ISM. By contrast, proposed SN feedback models in the literature based on `delayed cooling' significantly overpredict the late-time thermal energy and momentum in SNRs.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/de941a73419bce2ed7faf021fcc53ad0eb3ae8c7

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Citations in the corpus

Feedback-regulated star formation and escape of LyC photons from mini-haloes during reionization (2016, background): “Based on Thornton et al. (1998, see also Blondin et al. 1998; Kim & Ostriker 2015; Geen et al. 2015; Martizzi et al. 2015), this model captures the correct radial momentum input from SN explosions at the snowplough phase (pSN,snow), pSN,snow = 3× 105 km s−1 M n−2/17H E 16/17 51 Z ′−0.14, (14) by…”
Gusty, gaseous flows of FIRE: Galactic winds in cosmological simulations with explicit stellar feedback (2015, methodology): “Simulations that do resolve star-forming regions but employ the blastwave model (e.g. Stinson et al. 2013) may overheat the galactic wind material artificially as a consequence of temporarily disabled cooling (Agertz et al. 2013; Martizzi et al. 2015).”
First results from the IllustrisTNG simulations: a tale of two elements - chemical evolution of magnesium and europium (2017, background): “…to subgrid turbulent mixing, the metallicity of the surrounding gas can affect the cooling efficiency of the remnant as well, decreasing the value of the cooling mass at higher metallicities, Mcool ∝ Z−3/7 (Cioffi et al. 1988; Thornton et al. 1998; Martizzi et al. 2015; Macias & Ramirez-Ruiz 2016).”
How Stellar Feedback Simultaneously Regulates Star Formation and Drives Outflows (2015, background): “…for this condition to be satisfied inthe outer regions of discs or if the surface density of the local ISM has already been reduced considerably by other forms of feedback or other supernovae before a supernova explodes (e.g.Larson 1974; Cantó et al. 2000; Wada & Norman 2001; Martizzi et al. 2015).”
FIRE-2 simulations: physics versus numerics in galaxy formation (2017, methodology): “…pt comes from high-resolution simulations of individual SNe explosions (see e.g. Cioffi et al. 1988; Draine & Woods 1991; Slavin & Cox 1992; Thornton et al. 1998; Martizzi et al. 2015; Walch & Naab 2015; Kim & Ostriker 2015; Haid et al. 2016; Iffrig & Hennebelle 2015; Hu et al. 2016; Li et al.…”
Three-phase Interstellar Medium in Galaxies Resolving Evolution with Star Formation and Supernova Feedback (TIGRESS): Algorithms, Fiducial Model, and Convergence (2016, methodology): “…= ´p 2.8snr - - - ( )M n10 km s cm5 1 H 3 0.17 computed from resolved numerical simulations of a single SN in a two-phase medium (see KO15a); other resolved simulations for an inhomogeneous medium find similar final momenta (Martizzi et al. 2015; Iffrig & Hennebelle 2015; Walch & Naab 2015).”
The impact of baryonic physics on the structure of dark matter haloes: the view from the FIRE cosmological simulations (2015, background): “The delayed cooling is unphysically long and results from a misinterpretation of the standard supernova remnant results (Martizzi et al. 2015).”
(Star)bursts of FIRE: observational signatures of bursty star formation in galaxies (2015, background): “In dwarf galaxies, individual supernova remnants are resolved, and even in the more massive galaxies, they are timeresolved, and the subgrid model should do a reasonable job at capturing the unresolved phases (the uncertainties are at the tens of percent level; Martizzi et al. 2015).”
A unified model for galactic discs: star formation, turbulence driving, and mass transport (2017, background): “Simulations suggest the momentum per unit mass is p∗/m∗ ≈ 3000 km s−1 for single supernovae (Cioffi, McKee & Bertschinger 1988; Thornton et al. 1998; Kim & Ostriker 2015a; Martizzi et al. 2015; Walch & Naab 2015; Gentry et al. 2017; Kim, Ostriker & Raileanu 2017).”
Dark matter cores all the way down (2015, background): “Kim & Ostriker (2015) (and see also Martizzi et al. 2015; Gatto et al. 2015; Simpson et al. 2015) demonstrated that if rcool is resolved by at least three grid cells (rcool > 3∆x), the correct amount of momentum generated in the Sedov-Taylor phase is recovered before the bubble energy is radiated…”