Abstract
We have used the AMR hydrodynamic code, MG, to perform 3D hydrodynamic
simulations with self-gravity of stellar feedback in a spherical clumpy
molecular cloud formed through the action of thermal instability. We simulate
the interaction of the mechanical energy input from 15 Msun, 40 Msun, 60 Msun
and 120 Msun stars into a 100 pc-diameter 16,500 Msun cloud with a roughly
spherical morphology with randomly distributed high density condensations. The
stellar winds are introduced using appropriate non-rotating Geneva stellar
evolution models. In the 15 Msun star case, the wind has very little effect,
spreading around a few neighbouring clumps before becoming overwhelmed by the
cloud collapse. In contrast, in the 40 Msun, 60 Msun and 120 Msun star cases,
the more powerful stellar winds create large cavities and carve channels
through the cloud, breaking out into the surrounding tenuous medium during the
wind phase and considerably altering the cloud structure. After 4.97 Myrs, 3.97
Myrs and 3.01 Myrs respectively, the massive stars explode as supernovae (SNe).
The wind-sculpted surroundings considerably affect the evolution of these SN
events as they both escape the cloud along wind-carved channels and sweep up
remaining clumps of cloud/wind material. The `cloud' as a coherent structure
does not survive the SN from any of these stars, but only in the 120 Msun case
is the cold molecular material completely destabilised and returned to the
unstable thermal phase. In the 40 Msun and 60 Msun cases, coherent clumps of
cold material are ejected from the cloud by the SN, potentially capable of
further star formation.
Description
[1706.01844] Hydrodynamic simulations of mechanical stellar feedback in a molecular cloud formed by thermal instability
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