Collapse and Fragmentation of Magnetic Molecular Cloud Cores with the Enzo AMR MHD Code. II. Prolate and Oblate Cores

TL;DR

This study uses 3D MHD simulations to explore how magnetic molecular cloud cores with different shapes and magnetic strengths collapse, revealing conditions that lead to single or multiple star formation.

Contribution

It provides new insights into how initial magnetic field strength and cloud shape influence collapse outcomes and star system multiplicity.

Findings

Fragmentation occurs mainly when magnetic support is weak.

Oblate clouds tend to produce more fragments than prolate clouds.

Multiple protostar systems are more common than binaries.

Abstract

We present the results of a large suite of three-dimensional (3D) models of the collapse of magnetic molecular cloud cores using the adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) code Enzo2.2 in the ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) approximation. The cloud cores are initially either prolate or oblate, centrally condensed clouds with masses of 1.73 or 2.73 $M_\odot$, respectively. The radial density profiles are Gaussian, with central densities 20 times higher than boundary densities. A barotropic equation of state is used to represent the transition from low density, isothermal phases, to high density, optically thick phases. The initial magnetic field strength ranges from 6.3 to 100 $\mu$G, corresponding to clouds that are strongly to marginally supercritical, respectively, in terms of the mass to magnetic flux ratio. The magnetic field is initially uniform and aligned with the clouds' rotation axes, with initial ratios of rotational to gravitational energy ranging from $10^{-4}$ to 0.1. Two significantly different outcomes for collapse result: (1) formation of single protostars with spiral arms, and (2) fragmentation into multiple protostar systems. The transition between these two outcomes depends primarily on the initial magnetic field strength, with fragmentation occurring for mass to flux ratios greater than about 14 times the critical ratio for prolate clouds. Oblate clouds typically fragment into several times more clumps than prolate clouds. Multiple, rather than binary, system formation is the general rule in either case, suggesting that binary stars are primarily the result of the orbital dissolution of multiple protostar systems.