Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1993-07-23
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
29 pages, Plain TeX, 14 figures, Space Telescope Preprint Series-No. 758
Scientific paper
10.1086/173339
We investigate the evolution of interfaces among phases of the interstellar medium with different temperature. It is found that, for some initial conditions, the dynamical effects related to conductive fronts are very important even if radiation losses, which tend to decelerate the front propagation, are taken into account. We have also explored the consequences of the inclusion of shear and bulk viscosity, and we have allowed for saturation of the kinetic effects. Numerical simulations of a cloud immersed in a hot medium have been performed; depending on the ratio of conductive to dynamical time, the density is increased by a huge factor and the cloud may become optically thick. Clouds that are highly compressed are able to stop the evaporation process even if their initial size is smaller than the Field length. In addition to the numerical approach, the time dependent evolution has been studied also analytically. Simple techniques have been applied to the problem in order to study the transition stages to a stationary state. The global properties of the solution for static and steady fronts and useful relations among the various physical variables are derived; a mechanical analogy is often used to clarify the physics of the results. It is demonstrated that a class of soliton-like solutions are admitted by the hydrodynamical equations appropriate to describe the conduction/cooling fronts (in the inviscid case) that do not require a heat flux at the boundaries. Some astrophysical consequences are indicated along with some possible applications to the structure of the Galactic ISM and to extragalactic objects.
Ferrara Andrea
Shchekinov Yuri
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