Lecture 3

Star formation Part II

Lecture Universitt Heidelberg WS 11/12 Dr. Christoph Mordasini Based partially on script of Prof. W. Benz Mentor Prof. T. Henning

Lecture 3 overview
1. Jeans instability
1.1 from force balance 1.2 from intuitive arguments 1.3 from virial theorem 1.4 from perturbation theory 1.5 with rotation

2. Poisson equation and potential energy of a sphere 3. Collapse of a T=0 spherical gas cloud
3.1 Fragmentation 3.2 Opacity limit

1. Jeans instability

Jeans instability
We have seen in the last lectures that the galaxy contains Giant Molecular Clouds, consisting of cold gas. These clouds are usually stable, with pressure (due to a nite temperature) balancing self-gravity. We have also seen when studying perturbations in a self gravitating uid, that exponential growth is possible. Now we want to understand under which conditions small perturbations of a gas cloud grow exponentially, leading to the collapse of the cloud (and, in the end star formation). The so-called Jeans instability describes the gravitational instability of a self-gravitating gas cloud. There are several ways to derive such a criterion, with increasing complexity. M T, p r

The initially stable, static cloud can get initially compressed a bit (perturbed) by a shock wave due to a nearby supernova, passing spiral arms of the galaxy, ..

1.1 Jeans instability from force balance

Jeans instability from force balance

The simplest, order of magnitude estimation can be obtained by force balance arguments. Collapse occurs if the inwards directed gravitational force is bigger than the outwards directed pressure force. Consider mean unit forces per volume. r A Force balance We note: so higher pressure=>more stability higher density=>less stability with dense, cold clouds are unstable critical maximal radius that allows stability.

FP M, V T, p FG

1.2 Jeans instability from intuitive arguments

Jeans instability from intuitive arguments

Consider a spherical, isothermal cloud of radius r. Now imagine that a small perturbation reducing the volume V so that the mean density increases from initially 0 by a small amount (perturbation), say by 1=0 with <<1. Since for an isothermal gas, p=c2, we have for the pressure perturbation p1=c20. From the Euler equation we know that the general expression for the acceleration due to the pressure force is given as

The extra acceleration associated with the perturbation can therefore be estimated by

We see that the stronger we compress the cloud, the stronger the pressure pushes back. But also the gravity increases due to the increased density. The associated extra gravitational acceleration is The cloud will be unstable towards collapse if the excess gravitational acceleration exceeds the excess pressure acceleration. With the assumption that the cloud remains isothermal, if this condition is once satised it will remain satised.

Jeans instability from intuitive arguments II

Thus instability occurs if

This any perturbation with a wavelength exceeding the above length scale will be unstable towards gravitational collapse. This can also be looked at as a ration of timescales since sound traversal timescale: dynamical timescale: This latter timescale is the gravitational free fall timescale in the absence of pressure support: (we can use mean values like M/2, r/2, but they cancel out)

This is also the fundamental timescale with which stars oscillate around its equilibrium.

Jeans instability from intuitive arguments III

Therefore, we can write the instability criterion also as

Information transport in the cloud occurs with a velocity equal c. In this picture, the criterion means that instability occurs if sound waves do not have the time to traverse the cloud over a dynamical timescale. This means that the pressure has not the time to react, and cannot increase in time to counterbalance the gravity, as e.g. the center of the cloud does not yet know what is going on at the surface. The comparison of relevant timescales is a very fundamental concept in astrophysics to understand (at least roughly) physical mechanisms.

1.3 Jeans instability from the virial theorem

Jeans instability from the virial theorem

Let us again assume a static, spherical, homogenous cloud of radius r. We now add the fact that the cloud is in equilibrium with an outside medium at a pressure pext. We further assume that the cloud does not have any bulk kinetic energy and the the pressure is constant throughout the cloud. We recall that the general virial theorem is given as
I: moment of inertia

With our assumptions this becomes

where we have assumed an ideal gas with f degrees of freedom. The factor q in the gravitational potential energy depends on the density distribution. For a homogeneous density, it is 3/5, cf later. Assuming further f=3 (1 atomic gas) and

We rst note that we can use the ideal gas law

, so

This tells us that the pressure in the cloud must be higher in the presence of gravity. Or in other words, the necessary external pressure to conne the gas is lower. In its absence, the pressure in the cloud and the one outside are the same.

pext A

Jeans instability from the virial theorem II

B For xed M and T the external pressure has the following shape as a function of R. The curve gives us possible equilibrium states (radii) at a specied external pressure. We note: -for too high pext no equilibria exist. -for sufciently low pext two equilibra exist. But only one is stable:

Rm

1) At point B, if we decrease R (compression), pext increases (and with it also the internal p). This is a stable equilibrium. 2) At point A, if we decrease R (compression), pext necessary to conne the cloud decreases too (and with it also the internal p). This is clearly an unstable equilibrium. We can nd the critical radius Rm which divides the two regimes by setting which yields

Using

and the ideal gas EOS

where

is the isothermal sound speed, we nd:

Jeans instability from the virial theorem III

The Jeans length is from this analysis
The numerical constant is very close to unity (ca. 0.95), so we nd a similar result as before.

The corresponding Jeans mass is

Using typical values we nd and The collapse thus begins with large masses.

This is more than the typical mass of a single star (less than 1 Msun). This indicates that during the collapse, only part of the gas ends up in stars, and that the cloud fragments during collapse. Thus many stars form out of one collapsing cloud, which means that young stars get born in clusters.

1.4 Jeans instability from the perturbation theory

Jeans instability from perturbation theory

We have seen above how we can use the linearized hydrodynamic equations to study the behavior of waves in a self-gravitating uid. Here we consider a blob of gas with uniform T and uniform density 0 at rest. For such a conguration, the mass and momentum conservation equations imply that the gradient of the gravitational potential is vanishing. Poissons equation on the other hand dictates for the Laplacian: This initial conguration is therefore not a solution to the conservation equations, which is in principle a requirement for the perturbation analysis. This is often called the Jeans swindle, but nevertheless quite often used. The stability of such a conguration can be studied using the dispersion relation for sound waves in a self-gravitating medium. The dispersion relation gives the relation between angular frequency = 2 f and the wave number k = 2 /. We have seen above that

Jeans instability from perturbation theory II

For our wave like perturbations, 2>0 have an oscillatory nature 2<0 describe an exponential growth, i.e. an instability The critical value is simply found by setting 2=0, which gives the critical wave length 2 /k

which is, to a numerical factor of order unity, the same as before.

1.5 Jeans instability with rotation

Jeans instability with rotation

To derive a more realistic instability criterion it is necessary to take into account rotation. In a rotation frame of reference it is necessary to add the Coriolis and the centrifugal accelerations to the hydrodynamic equations.

The initial velocity is then still zero. Let us assume that and that perturbations propagate only along the z axis. We then get the perturbation equations 1) 2)

Note: the centrifugal term cancels the gradient of the potential of the equilibrium solution: no Jeans swindle

3) with the equation of state:

Jeans instability with rotation II

We now seek for solutions of the type and similar perturbations for all other variables. Inserting these solutions in the above equations yields

This system of equations can be written in a matrix form:

Jeans instability with rotation III

We are looking for non-trivial solutions. This means that the determinant must be zero. This leads to a bi-quadratic equation in for the dispersion relation:

where cos is the angle between the direction of propagation of the perturbation and the rotation axis . Using Vietas relation, we can get the following two equations for the solving the equation:

Two cases must be distinguished: For 90, from the second line we note that the sign of depends only on the instability criterion without rotation, as the other terms are always >0. This means that if the Jeans instability criterion without rotation is satised, namely if then also in the case with rotation, collapse occurs. For this geometry, rotation cannot prevent a cloud from collapsing.

Jeans instability with rotation IV

The second case is the important special case where =90, i.e. where the rotation axis and the perturbation are perpendicular to each other. The dispersion relation takes the simple form:

(fast rot.)

(slow rot.)

0
unstable

Clearly, the additional rotation term acts stabilizing. For sufciently large rotation, in the direction perpendicular to the rotation axis, rotation can stabilize the largest scales from gravitational collapse. This is nothing else than the fact that angular momentum is an enemy of star formation, and that instead of collapsing into a point, the cloud must now collapse into a disk.

small wavelength (large k): stabilized by pressure large wavelength (small k): stabilized by rotation

90 =90

2. Poisson equation and potential energy of a sphere

Poisson equation
We have used already several times the Poisson equation which gives the gravitational potential. From Newton we know the universal law of gravity: The ux through an arbitrary surface is then: as In spherical coordinates the ux is therefore

Any mass is given as

, there fore this last line is also

Poisson equation II
With the Satz von Gauss we can write the equation for the ux also like this:

Therefore we nd

This equation must be true for all volumina. Therefore, the integrands themselves must be identical:

Gravity is a conservative force i.e. the rotation vanishes: Therefore, a potential must exist which satises

So, we nally have the Poisson equation

Potential energy of a sphere

The total gravitational potential (or binding) energy of a sphere of uniform density can be found by considering the successive accretion of spherical layers on the matter already there. The gravitational potential of the planet outside of the planet is and a mass shell is

So, in our derivation for the Jeans mass out of the virial theorem, q=3/5.

Potential energy of a sphere

With the above equation, we can estimate the Kelvin Helmholtz timescale of the sun, i.e. the time on which the sun cools if it would be powered by gravitational contraction. We remember from the virial theorem that during contraction, half of the potential energy goes into internal energy, while the other have is to be radiated away.

So we can radiate away the total energy: At the current luminosity of the sun, we can therefore estimate the time on which the sun would cool:

We know that the actual energy source of the sun is fusion, not contraction. But before the discovery that nuclear fusion powers stars (~1920), this short timescale was a very puzzling result.

3. Collapse of a T=0 K spherical homogeneous gas cloud

Collapse of a T=0 K spherical homogeneous gas cloud

We now consider what is happening after the collapse has started. We assume that pressure does not play a role (yet), which we (formally) can represent by assuming T=0 K. Then, the equation of motion of a spherical cloud is simply given as

Integration by separation of the variables with the initial conditions v(0)=0 and r(0)=r0 yields the velocity as a function of r

Next we look for v(t) and r(t). With the ansatz r=ro cos2() we eventually nd the non algebraic equation for (t)

Collapse of a T=0 K spherical homogeneous gas cloud II

One denes the free fall time as the time required for complete collapse (r=0). From our ansatz r=ro cos2(), we see that this is a case if =/2. Solving for t yields

which depends only on the cloud density, but not on the total cloud mass. The higher the density, the smaller tff. For interstellar densities 0~10-22 g/cm3, we get tff~7 Myrs. This result ignores both angular momentum (rotation) and magnetic elds, which will counteract collapse, and therefore lengthen the true collapse time. The free-fall collapse time given above is a lower limit to a more realistic collapse time calculation. As the total mass of the collapsing cloud does not change, we nd for the density

The velocity is

We note the following points:

Collapse of a T=0 K spherical homogeneous gas cloud III

1) The density remains constant with r

which means that e.g. the center does not become proportionally denser than the outer parts.

2) The velocity is linear in r

Collapse of a T=0 K spherical homogeneous gas cloud IV

3) Most of the action happens in the last moments cf.

Initially, r and change only slowly, then very rapidly. For example, only when

4) Density perturbations (e.g. initial enhancements) grow faster, since for

tff,1<tff,0 for >0 i.e. higher density regions collapse quicker.

3.1 Fragmentation

Fragmentation I
During the collapse, increases. As long as the density still remains adequately low for the cloud to be transparent, the released thermal energy is radiated into the universe and the temperature remains approximately constant. As

suggests, this leads to a decrease of the Jeans mass. In particular, sub-sections of the cloud suddenly surpass their own Jeans limit and start collapsing on their own. As also tff is smaller for higher densities, these sub-collapses proceed faster. This clearly leads to fragmentation. Here we calculate the collapse of an density perturbation in the otherwise homogenous cloud

Such places might be the origin of later individual star formation, as they decouple.

Fragmentation II
Using the free fall velocity, we can re-write the master equation

The collapse occurs at =/2. To compute the difference in collapse between the background cloud and the perturbation, we dene as the parameter characterizing the cloud, and the parameter characterizing the perturbation. Because most of the action happens shortly before the complete collapse, it is convenient to introduce small angles measuring the difference to the full collapse (where we can use that for small angles e.g. sin()) : for the background cloud for the perturbation Both angles are <<1, and complete collapse occurs when they vanish. Inserting this into the master equation, we nd after some algebra:

Fragmentation III
This means that at moment when the perturbation has fully collapsed (=0), we have in the background cloud:

This corresponds to a density increase in the background cloud equal

For example, an initial density perturbation of 1% ( )will fragment out of the gas cloud when the mean density of the latter has increased by a factor 7000. Keeping in mind that the full density increase form a GMC to a star is ~20 orders of magnitude, this is a small increase only. In other words, small initial density uctuations lead to a much faster collapse.

3.2 Opacity limit

Opacity limit
We have neglected up to now the effect of pressure, or equivalently assumed a low, constant temperature. As the density becomes higher and higher, the gas increasingly becomes opaque to its own radiation. Therefore, the temperature must start to rise at some point. This eventually leads to a minimum fragment size into which the cloud can break up. This is know as the opacity limit. We have seen that

In the limit that the gas becomes completely radiatively inefcient, i.e. adiabatic at high opacities, we have for a monoatomic ideal gas i.e. With the EOS this means so nally,

which says that in the adiabatic case, the Jeans mass increases with density. The combination of the decrease of MJ with density in the isothermal regime, and the increase of MJ with it in the adiabatic regime must lead to a critical mass when the two regimes meet.

Opacity limit II
We can estimate the critical mass by some simple energy considerations. 1)Heating The gravitational binding energy of a collapsing gas ball is q=3/5 for cst. density The collapse happens on a typical timescale tff

The liberated binding energy per second which heats the gas is therefore

2) Cooling In the same time cools the gas by radiating as a blackbody at the surface of the gas blob. f: correction factor i.e radiation efciency<1

Opacity limit III

The gas will start to heat up (become adiabatic) as soon as the cooling becomes slower than the heating. In order to prevent this we must have:

i.e.

Solving for M gives the criterion

In the same time, the mass must be bigger than the Jeans mass for collapse to proceed, so

When MJ and Mcrit become equal, we hit the opacity limit.

Opacity limit IV
Using our earlier result for the Jeans mass and combining the equations above, we nally nd for the minimal fragment mass

(=5.24)

Recalling that the isothermal sound speed is

we get using q=3/5 [g]

We see that the result only depends weakly on the temperature. Numerically we get T= 10 K, f=1 => T= 100 K, f=0.01 => From this very simple estimate we thus see that cloud fragmentation leads to objects going from the upper planetary mass domain to low mass stars (M dwarfs, the most frequent type of stars in the galaxy).

Further reading
R. Kippenhahn & A. Weigert Stellar structure and evolution, Springer Verlag, Berlin, 3rd Ed. 1994 S. Stahler, F. Palla The formation of stars, Wiley-VCH, Weinheim, 2004

Questions?