Cluster Formation in Protostellar Outflow-driven Turbulence

By Zhi-Yun Li, F. Nakamura. 2005

165 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Most, perhaps all, stars go through a phase of vigorous outflow during formation. We examine, through three-dimensional MHD simulation, the effects of protostellar outflows on cluster formation. We find that the initial turbulence in the cluster-forming region is quickly replaced by motions generated by outflows. The protostellar outflow-driven turbulence ("protostellar turbulence" for short) can keep the region close to a virial equilibrium long after the initial turbulence has decayed away. We argue that there exist two types of turbulence in star-forming clouds: a primordial (or "interstellar") turbulence and a protostellar turbulence, with the former transformed into the latter mostly in embedded clusters such as NGC 1333. Since the majority of stars are thought to form in clusters, an implication is that the stellar initial mass function is determined to a large extent by the stars themselves, through outflows that individually limit the mass accretion onto forming stars and collectively shape the environments (density structure and velocity field) in which most cluster members form. We speculate that massive cluster-forming clumps supported by protostellar turbulence gradually evolve toward a highly centrally condensed "pivotal" state, culminating in rapid formation of massive stars in the densest part through accretion.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f4f22aeb34de8c42be04caaf241f35a4ed4eb8a3

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Citations in the corpus

OUTFLOW FEEDBACK REGULATED MASSIVE STAR FORMATION IN PARSEC-SCALE CLUSTER-FORMING CLUMPS (2009, background): “Their effects are expected to be particularly important in the dense clumps of active cluster formation, where many stars are formed close together in both space and time (Li & Nakamura 2006; Norman & Silk 1980).”
A UNIVERSAL, LOCAL STAR FORMATION LAW IN GALACTIC CLOUDS, NEARBY GALAXIES, HIGH-REDSHIFT DISKS, AND STARBURSTS (2011, unknown): “In regions lacking massive stars the turbulence can be driven by mechanisms such as protostellar outflows (Li & Nakamura 2006; Nakamura & Li 2007; Matzner 2007), while in regions containing massive stars it is driven by the radiation pressure (Krumholz & Matzner 2009; Murray et al. 2010) or…”
The Global Evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds. I. Model Formulation and Quasi-Equilibrium Behavior (2006, unknown): “…(e.g. Clark et al. 2005), include it only from a single source and/or focus on size scales much smaller than an entire GMC (e.g. Dale et al. 2005; Li & Nakamura 2006), or focus on the galactic scale and lack the resolution to say anything about individual GMCs (e.g. Slyz et al. 2005; Tasker &…”
Toward Understanding Massive Star Formation (2007, unknown): “The assumption of driven as opposed to decaying turbulence is important in these and similar simulations (cf. Heitsch, Mac Low & Klessen 2001, Li & Nakamura 2006).”
On the Rapid Collapse and Evolution of Molecular Clouds (2007, background): “Li & Nakamura (2006) and Nakamura & Li (2007) took a different approach.”
Protostellar Turbulence Driven by Collimated Outflows (2007, methodology): “We have made a start in simulating cluster formation in magnetized parsec-scale dense clumps including outflows (Li & Nakamura 2006).”
Equilibrium Star Cluster Formation (2006, background): “Recent observations that find outflows inject enough energy to maintain turbulence (Williams, Plambeck, & Heyer 2003; Quillen et al. 2005) support this idea, as do the numerical simulations of Li & Nakamura (2006).”
DIRECT NUMERICAL SIMULATION OF RADIATION PRESSURE-DRIVEN TURBULENCE AND WINDS IN STAR CLUSTERS AND GALACTIC DISKS (2012, background): “Simulations of mechanical feedback from both protostellar outflows (Li & Nakamura 2006; Nakamura & Li 2007; Wang et al. 2010) and photoionization-driven “champagne” flows from molecular clouds (Gendelev & Krumholz 2012) show that strong, ordered magnetic fields can significantly enhance the effects…”
Before the first supernova: combined effects of H II regions and winds on molecular clouds (2014, unknown): “Radiation pressure, jets and outflows in the 100au–1pc regime may help to set stellar masses, and may drive small–scale turbulence (e.g Li & Nakamura 2006; Cunningham et al. 2011).”
Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium (2014, background): “Briefly, the reason for this is that if Q 1, the disk will be highly unstable and will form stars rapidly (see e.g. Li et al., 2005, 2006).”
HARP/ACSIS: a submillimetre spectral imaging system on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (2009, background): “Finally, the 12CO data trace mainly high-velocity outflows, which may regulate the whole process by feeding-in large quantities of energy and momentum into the cloud bulk (Norman & Silk 1980; Li & Nakamura 2006).”
Star Formation in the Milky Way and Nearby Galaxies (2012, background): “For low-mass stars, outflows provide the primary feedback (e.g., Li & Nakamura 2006) while high-mass stars add radiation pressure and expanding H II regions (e.g., Murray 2011).”
Global hierarchical collapse in molecular clouds. Towards a comprehensive scenario (2019, background): “2011), and by numerical simulations of the effect of feedback from stellar outflows on clump-sized (∼ 1 pc) structures (e.g., Nakamura & Li 2005, 2007; Li & Nakamura 2006; Carroll et al. 2009, see also the reviews by VázquezSemadeni 2011 and Krumholz et al. 2014).”
RADIATION-HYDRODYNAMIC SIMULATIONS OF THE FORMATION OF ORION-LIKE STAR CLUSTERS. II. THE INITIAL MASS FUNCTION FROM WINDS, TURBULENCE, AND RADIATION (2012, background): “This result at first appears to contradict those of previous studies, including Li & Nakamura (2006), Nakamura & Li (2007), Matzner (2007), Wang et al. (2010), and Cunningham et al. (2011), all of whom find that outflow feedback is important.”
Theory of Star Formation (2007, background): “Li & Nakamura (2006) and Nakamura & Li (2007) have carried out 3D MHD simulations of a forming star cluster, and found that the rate at which energy is input from protostellar winds maintains the surrounding gas in approximate virial equilibrium.”
THE DISRUPTION OF GIANT MOLECULAR CLOUDS BY RADIATION PRESSURE & THE EFFICIENCY OF STAR FORMATION IN GALAXIES (2009, background): “…massive stars, depositi n of momentum by expanding bubbles of photoionized HII region gas, deposition of momentum by the shocked winds from massive stars, and jets from protostars (e.g., McKee & Ostriker 1977; Silk 1997; Wada & Norman 2001; Matzner 2002; Li & Nakamura 2006; Cunningham et al. 2008).”
Accretion-driven turbulence as universal process: galaxies, molecular clouds, and protostellar disks (2009, background): “…from the outside, e.g., by colliding flows (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 &…”
FILAMENTARY STRUCTURE OF STAR-FORMING COMPLEXES (2009, background): “The formation of protostars in the central part of a cloud can cause outflows to “sculpt” radially directed filaments by removing lower-density gas between them (Li and Nakamura 2006).”
The structure of the interstellar medium of star‐forming galaxies (2011, background): “…1994; Padoan, Nordlund & Jones 1997; Scalo et al. 1998; Ostriker, Gammie & Stone 1999; Federrath, Klessen & Schmidt 2008; Price, Federrath & Brunt 2011) and prevents runaway collapse/star formation (Vázquez-Semadeni, Ballesteros-Paredes & Klessen 2003; Li et al. 2004; Li & Nakamura 2006).”