Direct Numerical Simulation of Radiation Pressure-Driven Turbulence and Winds in Star Clusters and Galactic Disks

TL;DR

This study uses advanced radiation-hydrodynamics simulations to explore how radiation pressure influences turbulence and winds in star-forming regions, revealing the role of Rayleigh-Taylor instability and quantifying momentum transfer.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed 2D simulations of radiation-driven turbulence and winds in dusty astrophysical environments, including an approximation formula for radiation force.

Findings

Radiation-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability induces supersonic turbulence.

Infrared radiation trapping is less efficient due to channel formation.

Net momentum deposition is reduced by a factor of 2-6 compared to simple estimates.

Abstract

[abridged] The pressure exerted by the radiation of young stars may be an important feedback mechanism in forming star clusters and the disks of starburst galaxies. However, there is great uncertainty in how efficiently radiation couples to matter in these high optical depth environments. In particular, it is unclear what levels of turbulence the radiation can produce, and whether the infrared radiation trapped by the dust opacity can give rise to heavily mass-loaded winds. In this paper we report a series of two-dimensional flux-limited diffusion radiation-hydrodynamics calculations performed with the code ORION in which we drive strong radiation fluxes through columns of dusty matter confined by gravity. We consider both systems where the radiation flux is sub-Eddington throughout the gas column, and where it is super-Eddington at the midplane but sub-Eddington in the atmosphere. In the latter, we find that the radiation-matter interaction gives rise to radiation-driven Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which drives supersonic turbulence at a level sufficient to fully explain the turbulence seen in Galactic protocluster gas clouds, and to make a non-trivial contribution to the turbulence observed in starburst galaxy disks. However, the instability also produces a channel structure in which the radiation-matter interaction is reduced because the radiation field is not fully trapped. For astrophysical parameters relevant to forming star clusters and starburst galaxies, we find that this effect reduces the net momentum deposition rate in the dusty gas by a factor of ~2-6 compared to simple analytic estimates, and that in steady state the Eddington ratio reaches unity and there are no strong winds. We provide an approximation formula, appropriate for implementation in analytic models and non-radiative simulations, for the force exerted by the infrared radiation field in this regime.