The formation of massive molecular filaments and massive stars triggered by a magnetohydrodynamic shock wave. (12th October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Inoue, Tsuyoshi; Hennebelle, Patrick; Fukui, Yasuo; Matsumoto, Tomoaki; Iwasaki, Kazunari; Inutsuka, Shu-ichiro
• Is Part Of: Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan. Volume 70:Number SP2(2018)
• Publication Date: 2017-10-12
• Subjects: magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) -- shock waves -- stars: massive; Astronomy -- Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/pasj/psx089
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0004-6264

Abstract

Abstract: Recent observations suggest an that intensive molecular cloud collision can trigger massive star/cluster formation. The most important physical process caused by the collision is a shock compression. In this paper, the influence of a shock wave on the evolution of a molecular cloud is studied numerically by using isothermal magnetohydrodynamics simulations with the effect of self-gravity. Adaptive mesh refinement and sink particle techniques are used to follow the long-time evolution of the shocked cloud. We find that the shock compression of a turbulent inhomogeneous molecular cloud creates massive filaments, which lie perpendicularly to the background magnetic field, as we have pointed out in a previous paper. The massive filament shows global collapse along the filament, which feeds a sink particle located at the collapse center. We observe a high accretion rate $\dot{M}_{\rm acc}> 10^{-4}\, M_{\odot }\:$ yr −1 that is high enough to allow the formation of even O-type stars. The most massive sink particle achieves M > 50 M $_{\odot }$ in a few times 10 5 yr after the onset of the filament collapse.