The Cloud Factory I: Generating resolved filamentary molecular clouds from galactic-scale forces

Abstract

We introduce a new suite of simulations, "The Cloud Factory", which self-consistently forms molecular cloud complexes at high enough resolution to resolve internal substructure (up to 0.25 Msol in mass) all while including galactic-scale forces. We use a version of the Arepo code modified to include a detailed treatment of the physics of the cold molecular ISM, and an analytical galactic gravitational potential for computational efficiency. The simulations have nested levels of resolution, with the lowest layer tied to tracer particles injected into individual cloud complexes. These tracer refinement regions are embedded in the larger simulation so continue to experience forces from outside the cloud. This allows the simulations to act as a laboratory for testing the effect of galactic environment on star formation. Here we introduce our method and investigate the effect of galactic environment on filamentary clouds. We find that cloud complexes formed after a clustered burst of feedback, have shorter lengths and are less likely to fragment compared to quiescent clouds (e.g. the Musca filament) or those dominated by the galactic potential (e.g. Nessie). Spiral arms and differential rotation preferentially align filaments, but strong feedback randomises them. Long filaments formed within the cloud complexes are necessarily coherent with low internal velocity gradients, which has implications for the formation of filamentary star-clusters. Cloud complexes formed in regions dominated by supernova feedback have fewer star-forming cores, and these are more widely distributed. These differences show galactic-scale forces can have a significant impact on star formation within molecular clouds.

20 pages, 15 figures, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (29)

• The NumPy array: a structure for efficient numerical computation
• The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
• The mass distribution and gravitational potential of the Milky Way
• Slow Star Formation in Dense Gas: Evidence and Implications
• Analytical theory for the initial mass function: CO clumps and prestellar cores
• Modeling Collapse and Accretion in Turbulent Gas Clouds: Implementation and Comparison of Sink Particles in AMR and SPH
• On the Star Formation Efficiency of Turbulent Magnetized Clouds
• Star formation through gravitational collapse and competitive accretion
• Molecular Cloud Evolution II. From cloud formation to the early stages of star formation in decaying conditions
• Simulating the formation of molecular clouds. I. Slow formation by gravitational collapse from static initial conditions
• Star Formation in Disk Galaxies. I. Formation and Evolution of Giant Molecular Clouds via Gravitational Instability and Cloud Collisions
• Simulating the formation of molecular clouds. II. Rapid formation from turbulent initial conditions
• CO-dark gas and molecular filaments in Milky Way type galaxies
• On the nature of star-forming filaments: I. Filament morphologies
• Modelling the supernova-driven ISM in different environments
• The Bones of the Milky Way
• GMC formation by agglomeration and self gravity
• Spurs and feathering in spiral galaxies
• The SILCC project --- IV. Impact of dissociating and ionising radiation on the interstellar medium and Halpha emission as a tracer of the star formation rate
• Simulations of the star-forming molecular gas in an interacting M51-like galaxy
• Aspect Ratio Dependence of the Free-Fall Time for Non-Spherical Symmetries
• Modelling CO emission from hydrodynamic simulations of nearby spirals, starbursting mergers, and high-redshift galaxies
• The CARMA-NRO Orion Survey: The filamentary structure as seen in C${}^{18}$O emission
• A simple method to convert sink particles into stars
• The Interstellar Medium and star formation on kpc size scales
• The evolution of Giant Molecular Filaments
• Kiloparsec-Scale Simulations of Star Formation in Disk Galaxies III. Structure and Dynamics of Filaments and Clumps in Giant Molecular Clouds
• Periodicity makes galactic shocks unstable - I. Linear analysis
• Synthetic Large-Scale Galactic Filaments -- on their Formation, Physical Properties, and Resemblance to Observations

Cited by in corpus (27)

• Simulations of the star-forming molecular gas in an interacting M51-like galaxy
• On the Three-Dimensional Structure of Local Molecular Clouds
• Formation sites of Population III star formation: The effects of different levels of rotation and turbulence on the fragmentation behavior of primordial gas
• CO excitation, molecular gas density and interstellar radiation field in local and high-redshift galaxies
• Dependence of $X_{\mathrm{CO}}$ on metallicity, intensity, and spatial scale in a self-regulated interstellar medium
• UV to submillimetre luminosity functions of TNG50 galaxies
• PDFchem: A new fast method to determine ISM properties and infer environmental parameters using probability distributions
• How do different spiral arm models impact the ISM and GMC population?
• LOC program for line radiative transfer
• The evolution of temperature and density structures of OB cluster-forming molecular clumps
• The formation of clusters and OB associations in different density spiral arm environments
• Diverse Molecular Structures Across The Whole Star-Forming Disk of M83: High fidelity Imaging at 40pc Resolution
• Discovery of a coherent, wave-like velocity pattern for the Radcliffe Wave
• Stellar winds and photoionization in a spiral arm
• The Cloud Factory II: Gravoturbulent Kinematics of Resolved Molecular Clouds in a Galactic Potential
• The effects of local stellar radiation and dust depletion on non-equilibrium interstellar chemistry
• ALMA uncovers highly filamentary structure towards the Sgr E region
• On the evolution of the observed Mass-to-Length relationship for star-forming filaments
• The role of previous generations of stars in triggering star formation and driving gas dynamics
• Universal gravity-driven isothermal turbulence cascade in disk galaxies
• The filamentary structures in the CO emission toward the Milky Way disk
• Non-Equilibrium Abundances Treated Holistically (NEATH): the molecular composition of star-forming clouds
• Weather Forecast of the Milky Way: Shear and Stellar feedback determine the lives of Galactic-scale filaments
• Do simulated molecular clouds look like real ones?
• The CARMA-NRO Orion Survey: Filament Formation via Collision-Induced Magnetic Reconnection -- The Stick in Orion A
• A Herschel study of G214.5-1.8: a young, cold and quiescent giant molecular filament on the shell of a HI superbubble
• Filament Formation via Collision-induced Magnetic Reconnection -- Formation of a Star Cluster