Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-pwrkn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-23T20:05:15.219Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Gravitational Fragmentation in Expanding Shells

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2016

Ch. Theis
Affiliation:
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Kiel, 24098 Kiel, Germany
S. Ehlerová
Affiliation:
Astronomical Institute, Acad, of Sci. of the CR, 14131 Prague 4, Czech Republic
J. Palouš
Affiliation:
Astronomical Institute, Acad, of Sci. of the CR, 14131 Prague 4, Czech Republic
G. Hensler
Affiliation:
Institut für Astronomie und Astrophysik, Universität Kiel, 24098 Kiel, Germany

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We investigate the gravitational fragmentation in expanding shells by applying an instability ’thermometer’ similar to the Toomre parameter for instabilities in self-gravitating disks. For Sedov–like evolving systems the onset of instability is mainly depending on the density of the ambient medium and the sound speed of the shell matter, whereas the energy injection rate is less important. Shells evolve towards gravitational instability, if the density gradient of the ambient medium is shallower than an isothermal profile, otherwise they become more stable. For density gradients flatter than ∝ r−1, the fragmentation becomes non-linear on the same time scale as the gravitational instability needs to start. In a homogeneous ambient medium the typical size of gravitationally unstable shells is 1 kpc for a gas density of n = 1 cm−3 and decreases to 10 pc for n = 104 cm−3.

Type
Part VII Gas in Superbubbles and in the Galactic Halo
Copyright
Copyright © Springer-Verlag 1998

References

Castor, J., McCray, R., & Weaver, R., 1975, ApJ, 200, L107 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elmegreen, B.G., 1994, ApJ, 427, 384 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mac Low, M.-M. & McCray, R., 1988, ApJ, 324, 776 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mac Low, M.-M., McCray, R. & Norman, M.L., 1989, ApJ, 337, 141 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sedov, L., 1959, Similarity and Dimensional Methods in Mechanics, Academic Press, New York Google Scholar
Vishniac, E.T., 1983, ApJ, 274, 152 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vishniac, E.T. & Ryu, D., 1989, ApJ, 337, 917 CrossRefGoogle Scholar