Mutual influence of supernovae and molecular clouds

TL;DR

This study uses 3D simulations to explore how supernovae influence molecular clouds and the role of magnetic fields, revealing that supernova location significantly affects cloud mass removal and star formation regulation.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the impact of supernovae on molecular clouds and the influence of magnetic fields through detailed numerical simulations and analytical modeling.

Findings

Supernovae inside clouds remove a significant fraction of cloud mass.

Supernovae outside clouds have limited impact on cloud mass.

Magnetic fields increase momentum transfer to dense gas.

Abstract

Context. Molecular clouds are known to be turbulent and strongly affected by stellar feedback. Moreover, stellar feedback is believed to drive turbulence at large scales in galaxies. Aims. We study the role played by supernovae in molecular clouds and the influence of the magnetic field on this process. Methods. We performed three-dimensional numerical simulations of supernova explosions, in and near turbulent self-gravitating molecular clouds. In order to study the influence of the magnetic field, we performed both hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical simulations. We also ran a series of simple uniform density medium simulations and developed a simple analytical model. Results. We find that the total amount of momentum that is delivered during supernova explosions typically varies by a factor of about 2, even when the gas density changes by 3 orders of magnitude. However, the amount of momentum delivered to the dense gas varies by almost a factor of 10 if the supernova explodes within or outside the molecular cloud. The magnetic field has little influence on the total amount of momentum injected by the supernova explosions but increases the momentum injected into the dense gas. Conclusions. Supernovae that explode inside molecular clouds remove a significant fraction of the cloud mass. Supernovae that explode outside have a limited influence on the cloud. It is thus essential to know sufficiently well the correlation between supernovae and the surrounding dense material in order to know whether supernovae can regulate star formation effectively.