Impact of Protostellar Outflows on Turbulence and Star Formation Efficiency in Magnetized Dense Cores

TL;DR

This study uses magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to explore how protostellar outflows influence turbulence and star formation efficiency in dense cores, revealing that outflows sustain turbulence and that efficiency decreases with magnetic field strength.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the role of outflows in maintaining turbulence and quantifies how magnetic fields affect star formation efficiency and outflow dynamics.

Findings

Outflows drive and sustain turbulence in dense cores.

Star formation efficiency decreases with increasing magnetic field strength.

Outflow entrainment ratio remains roughly constant over time.

Abstract

The star-forming efficiency of dense gas is thought to be set within cores by outflow and radiative feedback. We use magneto-hydrodynamic simulations to investigate the relation between protostellar outflow evolution, turbulence and star formation efficiency. We model the collapse and evolution of isolated dense cores for $\gtrsim$ 0.5 Myr including the effects of turbulence, radiation transfer, and both radiation and outflow feedback from forming protostars. We show that outflows drive and maintain turbulence in the core environment even with strong initial fields. The star-formation efficiency decreases with increasing field strength, and the final efficiencies are $15-40$\%. The Stage 0 lifetime, during which the protostellar mass is less than the dense envelope, increases proportionally with the initial magnetic field strength and ranges from $\sim 0.1-0.4$ Myr. The average accretion rate is well-represented by a tapered turbulent core model, which is a function of the final protostellar mass and is independent of the magnetic field strength. By tagging material launched in the outflow, we demonstrate that the outflow entrains about $3$ times the actual launched gas mass, a ratio that remains roughly constant in time regardless of the initial magnetic field strength. However, turbulent driving increases for stronger fields since momentum is more efficiently imparted to non-outflow material. The protostellar outflow momentum is highest during the first 0.1 Myr and declines thereafter by a factor of $\gtrsim 10$ as the accretion rate diminishes.