Abstract
We analyse the first giant molecular cloud (GMC) simulation to follow the formation of individual stars and their feedback from jets, radiation, winds, and supernovae, using the STARFORGE framework in the GIZMO code. We evolve the GMC for ~ 9 Myr, from initial turbulent collapse to dispersal by feedback. Protostellar jets dominate feedback momentum initially, but radiation and winds cause cloud disruption at 8 per cent star formation efficiency (SFE), and the first supernova at 8.3 Myr comes too late to influence star formation significantly. The per-free-fall SFE is dynamic, accelerating from 0 per cent to 18 per cent before dropping quickly to <1 per cent, but the estimate from YSO counts compresses it to a narrower range. The primary cluster forms hierarchically and condenses to a brief (~1 Myr) compact (~1 pc) phase, but does not virialize before the cloud disperses, and the stars end as an unbound expanding association. The initial mass function resembles the Chabrier (2005) form with a high-mass slope α = -2 and a maximum mass of 55 M⊙. Stellar accretion takes ~400 kyr on average, but ≥1 Myr for >10 M⊙ stars, so massive stars finish growing latest. The fraction of stars in multiples increase as a function of primary mass, as observed. Overall, the simulation much more closely resembles reality, compared to previous versions that neglected different feedback physics entirely. But more detailed comparison with synthetic observations will be needed to constrain the theoretical uncertainties.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 216-232 |
| Number of pages | 17 |
| Journal | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Volume | 512 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - May 1 2022 |
Funding
Support for MYG was provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant # HST -HF2-51479 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555. DG was supported by the Harlan J. Smith McDonald Observatory Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Cottrell Fellowships Award (#27982) from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement. SSRO and ANR were supported by NSF CAREER grant AST-1748571. SSRO also acknowledges funding from NSF AST-1812747, NSF-AAG 2107942, NASA grant 80NSSC20K0507, and the Research Corporation for Science Advancement through a Cottrell Scholar Aw ard (#24400). CAFG w as supported by NSF through grants AST -1715216, AST -2108230, and CAREER award AST-1652522; by NASA through grant 17- ATP17-0067; by STScI through grant HST -AR-16124.001-A; and by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement through a Cottrell Scholar Award. ALR acknowledges support from Harvard University through the ITC Post-doctoral Fellowship. This work used computational resources provided by Frontera allocations AST20019 and AST21002, and additional resources provided by the University of Texas at Austin and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC; http://www.tacc.utexas.edu ). This research is a part of the Frontera computing project at the Texas Advanced Computing Center. Frontera is made possible by National Science Foundation award OAC-1818253.
Keywords
- ISM: general
- MHD
- radiative transfer
- stars: formation
- turbulence
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science