Publication Date:
2014-04-06
Description:
We present numerical simulations of isothermal, magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), supersonic turbulence, designed to test various hypotheses frequently assumed in star formation (SF) theories. This study complements our previous one in the non-magnetic (HD) case. We consider three simulations, each with different values of its physical size, rms sonic Mach number ${\cal M}_{\rm s}$ , and Jeans parameter J , but so that all three have the same value of the virial parameter and conform with Larson's scaling relations. As in the non-magnetic case, we find that (1) no structures that are both subsonic and super-Jeans are produced; (2) that the fraction of small-scale super-Jeans structures increases when self-gravity is turned on, and the production of very dense cores by turbulence alone is very low. This implies that self-gravity is involved not only in the collapse of Jeans-unstable cores, but also in their formation. (3) We also find that denser regions tend to have a stronger velocity convergence, implying a net inwards flow towards the regions’ centres. Contrary to the non-magnetic case, we find that the magnetic simulation with lowest values of ${\cal M}_{\rm s}$ and J (respectively, 5 and 2) does not produce any collapsing regions for over three simulation free-fall times, in spite of being both Jeans-unstable and magnetically supercritical. We attribute this result to the combined thermal and magnetic support. Next, we compare the results of our HD and MHD simulations with the predictions from the recent SF theories by Krumholz & McKee, Padoan & Nordlund, and Hennebelle & Chabrier, using expressions recently provided by Federrath & Klessen, which extend those theories to the magnetic case. In both the HD and MHD cases, we find that the theoretical predictions tend to be larger than the SFE ff measured in the simulations. In the MHD case, none of the theories captures the suppression of collapse at low values of J eff by the additional support from the magnetic field. We conclude that randomly driven isothermal turbulence may not correctly represent the flow within actual clouds, and that theories that assume this regime may be missing a fundamental aspect of the flow. Finally, we suggest that a more realistic regime may be that of hierarchical gravitational collapse.
Print ISSN:
0035-8711
Electronic ISSN:
1365-2966
Topics:
Physics
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