Radiation feedback in dusty clouds

TL;DR

This study uses radiation hydrodynamic simulations to assess how photoionization and radiation pressure influence dusty star-forming clouds, revealing that radiation pressure's impact varies with star formation efficiency and dust content.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the relative importance of radiation feedback mechanisms in dusty star-forming environments through detailed simulations.

Findings

Radiation pressure is negligible at 2% star formation efficiency.

Increasing star formation efficiency enhances radiation pressure effects.

Higher dust-to-gas ratios reduce the net radiation feedback effect.

Abstract

We have investigated the impact of photoionization and radiation pressure on a dusty star-forming cloud using one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic simulations, which include absorption and re-emission of photons by dust. We find that, in a cloud of mass 10^5 Msun and radius 17 pc, the effect of radiation pressure is negligible when star formation efficiency is 2%. The importance of radiation pressure increases with increasing star formation efficiency or an increasing dust-to-gas mass ratio. The net effect of radiation feedback, however, becomes smaller with the increasing dust-to-gas mass ratio, since the absorption of ultra-violet photons by dust grains suppresses photoionization and hence photoheating.