Formation of giant molecular clouds in global spiral structures: The role of orbital dynamics and cloud-cloud collisions

Details Formation of giant molecular clouds in global spiral structures: The role of orbital dynamics and cloud-cloud collisions Formation of giant molecular clouds in global spiral structures: The role of orbital dynamics and cloud-cloud collisions

May 1987

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1987pggp.rept..101r&link_type=abstract

In NASA, Washington, Reports of Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program, 1986 p 101 (SEE N87-23341 16-91)

Physics

Geophysics

Astronomical Models, Collisions, Computerized Simulation, Interstellar Matter, Molecular Clouds, Orbital Mechanics, Density Distribution, Gravitational Fields, Size Distribution, Velocity Distribution

Scientific paper

The different roles played by orbital dynamics and dissipative cloud-cloud collisions in the formation of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in a global spiral structure are investigated. The interstellar medium (ISM) is simulated by a system of particles, representing clouds, which orbit in a spiral-perturbed, galactic gravitational field. The overall magnitude and width of the global cloud density distribution in spiral arms is very similar in the collisional and collisionless simulations. The results suggest that the assumed number density and size distribution of clouds and the details of individual cloud-cloud collisions have relatively little effect on these features. Dissipative cloud-cloud collisions play an important steadying role for the cloud system's global spiral structure. Dissipative cloud-cloud collisions also damp the relative velocity dispersion of clouds in massive associations and thereby aid in the effective assembling of GMC-like complexes.

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