Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds

Details Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds

2003-11-12

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0311298v1

Astrophys.J. 604 (2004) 74-87

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

30 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Astrophysical Journal

Scientific paper

10.1086/381726

Accumulating observational evidence for a number of radio galaxies suggests an association between their jets and regions of active star formation. The standard picture is that shocks generated by the jet propagate through an inhomogeneous medium and trigger the collapse of overdense clouds, which then become active star-forming regions. In this contribution, we report on recent hydrodynamic simulations of radiative shock-cloud interactions using two different cooling models: an equilibrium cooling-curve model assuming solar metallicities and a non-equilibrium chemistry model appropriate for primordial gas clouds. We consider a range of initial cloud densities and shock speeds in order to quantify the role of cooling in the evolution. Our results indicate that for moderate cloud densities (>1 cm^{-3}) and shock Mach numbers (<20), cooling processes can be highly efficient and result in more than 50% of the initial cloud mass cooling to below 100 K. We also use our results to estimate the final H_2 mass fraction for the simulations that use the non-equilibrium chemistry package. This is an important measurement, since H_2 is the dominant coolant for a primordial gas cloud. We find peak H_2 mass fractions of >0.01 and total H_2 mass fractions of >10^{-5} for the cloud gas. Finally, we compare our results with the observations of jet-induced star formation in ``Minkowski's Object.'' We conclude that its morphology, star formation rate (~ 0.3M_solar/yr) and stellar mass (~ 1.2 x 10^7 M_solar) can be explained by the interaction of a 90,000 km/s jet with an ensemble of moderately dense (~ 10 cm^{-3}), warm (10^4 K) intergalactic clouds in the vicinity of its associated radio galaxy at the center of the galaxy cluster.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-46556