Superbubble dynamics in globular cluster infancy I. How do globular clusters first lose their cold gas?

TL;DR

This paper models the early gas expulsion in globular clusters, suggesting supernovae alone are insufficient and proposing that large-scale superbubbles driven by accretion may be responsible, with potential observability via radio telescopes.

Contribution

It introduces a thin-shell superbubble model for globular cluster gas expulsion, challenging the idea that supernovae alone can unbind the gas.

Findings

Supernova-driven shells are destroyed by Rayleigh-Taylor instability before escape speed.

More power, possibly from accretion onto remnants, is needed for gas expulsion.

Large bubbles may be observable with future radio telescopes.

Abstract

The picture of the early evolution of globular clusters has been significantly revised in recent years. Current scenarios require at least two generations of stars of which the first generation (1G), and therefore also the protocluster cloud, has been much more massive than the currently predominating second generation (2G). Fast gas expulsion is thought to unbind the majority of the 1G stars. Gas expulsion is also mandatory to remove metal-enriched supernova ejecta, which are not found in the 2G stars. It has long been thought that the supernovae themselves are the agent of the gas expulsion, based on crude energetics arguments. Here, we assume that gas expulsion happens via the formation of a superbubble, and describe the kinematics by a thin-shell model. We find that supernova- driven shells are destroyed by the Rayleigh-Taylor instability before they reach escape speed for all but perhaps the least massive and most extended clusters. More power is required to expel the gas, which might plausibly be provided by a coherent onset of accretion onto the stellar remnants. The resulting kpc-sized bubbles might be observable in Faraday rotation maps with the planned Square Kilometre Array radio telescope against polarised background radio lobes if a globular cluster would happen to form in front of such a radio lobe.