Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 463, Issue 3, Pages 2553-2573Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2153
Keywords
hydrodynamics; instabilities; stars: formation; stars: massive; ISM: bubbles
Categories
Funding
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) by the Space Telescope Science Institute [HST-AR-13265.02-A]
- NASA [NAS 5-26555, NAS8-03060]
- Chandra Theory Grant by the Chandra X-ray Observatory Center [TM5-16007X]
- NSF
- AAUW American Fellowship Programme
- NASA through ATP [NNX13AB84G]
- NSF [AST-1211729]
- US Department of Energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory [DE-AC52-07NA27344]
- NASA TCAN [NNX-14AB52G]
- Australian Research Council [DP160100695]
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1211729] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The pressure exerted by massive stars' radiation fields is an important mechanism regulating their formation. Detailed simulation of massive star formation therefore requires an accurate treatment of radiation. However, all published simulations have either used a diffusion approximation of limited validity; have only been able to simulate a single star fixed in space, thereby suppressing potentially important instabilities; or did not provide adequate resolution at locations where instabilities may develop. To remedy this, we have developed a new, highly accurate radiation algorithm that properly treats the absorption of the direct radiation field from stars and the re-emission and processing by interstellar dust. We use our new tool to perform 3D radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the collapse of massive pre-stellar cores with laminar and turbulent initial conditions and properly resolve regions where we expect instabilities to grow. We find that mass is channelled to the stellar system via gravitational and Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities, in agreement with previous results using stars capable of moving, but in disagreement with methods where the star is held fixed or with simulations that do not adequately resolve the development of RT instabilities. For laminar initial conditions, proper treatment of the direct radiation field produces later onset of instability, but does not suppress it entirely provided the edges of radiation-dominated bubbles are adequately resolved. Instabilities arise immediately for turbulent pre-stellar cores because the initial turbulence seeds the instabilities. Our results suggest that RT features should be present around accreting massive stars throughout their formation.
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