Numerical Simulations of a Shock Interacting with Multiple Magnetized Clouds

Abstract

We present 2D adiabatic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of a shock interacting with groups of two or three cylindrical clouds. We study how the presence of a nearby cloud influences the dynamics of this interaction, and explore the resulting differences and similarities in the evolution of each cloud. The understanding gained from this small-scale study will help to interpret the behaviour of systems with many 10's or 100's of clouds. We observe a wide variety of behaviour in the interactions studied, which is dependent on the initial positions of the clouds and the orientation and strength of the magnetic field. We find: i) some clouds are stretched along their field-lines, whereas others are confined by their field-lines; ii) upstream clouds may accelerate past downstream clouds (though magnetic tension can prevent this); iii) clouds may also change their relative positions transverse to the direction of shock propagation as they "slingshot" past each other; iv) downstream clouds may be offered some protection from the oncoming flow as a result of being in the lee of an upstream cloud; v) the cycle of cloud compression and re-expansion is generally weaker when there are nearby neighbouring clouds; vi) the plasma $\beta$ in cloud material can vary rapidly as clouds collide with one another, but low values of $\beta$ are always transitory. This work is relevant to studies of multi-phase regions, where fast, low-density gas interacts with dense clouds, such as in circumstellar bubbles, supernova remnants, superbubbles and galactic winds.

24 pages, 30 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (18)

• Feedback and the Structure of Simulated Galaxies at redshift z=2
• Radiative Shock-Induced Collapse of Intergalactic Clouds
• Evolution of clouds in radio galaxy cocoons
• On the Hydrodynamic Interaction of Shock Waves with Interstellar Clouds. II. The Effect of Smooth Cloud Boundaries on Cloud Destruction and Cloud Turbulence
• Hydrodynamic Interaction of Strong Shocks with Inhomogeneous Media - I: Adiabatic Case
• The importance of magnetic-field-oriented thermal conduction in the interaction of SNR shocks with interstellar clouds
• The Magnetohydrodynamics of Shock-Cloud Interaction in Three Dimensions
• The dynamics and high-energy emission of conductive gas clouds in supernova-driven galactic superwinds
• The turbulent destruction of clouds - I. A k-epsilon treatment of turbulence in 2D models of adiabatic shock-cloud interactions
• Dynamical and Pressure Structures in Winds with Multiple Embedded Evaporating Clumps I. 2D Numerical Simulations
• Self-Convergence of Radiatively Cooling Clumps
• Shock-triggered formation of magnetically-dominated clouds
• Model Simulations of a Shock-Cloud Interaction in the Cygnus Loop
• Numerical simulations of shocks encountering clumpy regions
• Hydrodynamic simulations of the interaction of supernova shock waves with a clumpy environment: the case of the RX J0852.0-4622 (Vela Jr) supernova remnant
• Resolved shocks in clumpy media
• Simulations of High-Velocity Clouds. II. Ablation from High-Velocity Clouds as a Source of Low-Velocity High Ions
• Modeling the X-rays Resulting from High Velocity Clouds

Cited by in corpus (14)

• Filament formation in wind-cloud interactions. I. Spherical clouds in uniform magnetic fields
• HST and HI Imaging of Strong Ram Pressure Stripping in the Coma Spiral NGC 4921: Dense Cloud Decoupling and Evidence for Magnetic Binding in the ISM
• Filament formation in wind-cloud interactions. II. Clouds with turbulent density, velocity, and magnetic fields
• On the dynamics and survival of fractal clouds in galactic winds
• Shock-multicloud interactions in galactic outflows -- II. Radiative fractal clouds and cold gas thermodynamics
• Shock-multicloud interactions in galactic outflows -- I. Cloud layers with log-normal density distributions
• Modelling the structure and kinematics of the Firework nebula: The nature of the GK Persei nova shell and its jet-like feature
• A comparison of shock-cloud and wind-cloud interactions: The longer survival of clouds in winds
• Unveiling the importance of magnetic fields in the evolution of dense clumps formed at the waist of bipolar H II regions: a case study on Sh2-201 with JCMT SCUBA-2/POL-2
• The interaction of a magnetohydrodynamical shock with a filament
• Not gone with the Wind: Survival of High-Velocity Molecular Clouds in the Galactic center
• Shocks and Molecules in Diffuse Interstellar Cloud Pairs
• Momentum and energy injection by a wind-blown bubble into an inhomogeneous interstellar medium
• Multi-cloud crushing -- the collective survival of cold clouds in galactic outflows