Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulations of Dust-Driven Winds

TL;DR

This study uses advanced radiation hydrodynamic simulations to explore dust-driven winds in star-forming galaxy atmospheres, revealing how radiation pressure can significantly accelerate gas and drive galactic winds.

Contribution

It introduces a variable Eddington tensor algorithm to accurately model radiation-gas interactions, showing differences from previous diffusion-based methods and emphasizing the role of optical depth.

Findings

Gas velocity and dispersion increase with optical depth.

Momentum transfer is amplified by a factor related to optical depth.

Radiation pressure can effectively drive winds in starburst galaxies.

Abstract

We study dusty winds driven by radiation pressure in the atmosphere of a rapidly star-forming environment. We apply the variable Eddington tensor algorithm to re-examine the two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic problem of a column of gas that is accelerated by a constant infrared radiation flux. In the absence of gravity, the system is primarily characterized by the initial optical depth of the gas. We perform several runs with different initial optical depth and resolution. We find that the gas spreads out along the vertical direction, as its mean velocity and velocity dispersion increase. In contrast to previous work using flux-limited diffusion algorithm, we find little evolution in the trapping factor. The momentum coupling between radiation and gas in the absence of gravity is similar to that with gravity. For Eddington ratio increasing with the height in the system, the momentum transfer from the radiation to the gas is not merely $\sim L/c$, but amplified by a factor of $1+\eta \tau_{\rm IR}$, where $\tau_{\rm IR}$ is the integrated infrared optical depth through the system, and $\eta\sim0.5-0.9$, decreasing with the optical depth. We apply our results to the atmosphere of galaxies and conclude that radiation pressure may be an important mechanism for driving winds in the most rapidly star-forming galaxies and starbursts.