Effects of initial density profiles on massive star cluster formation in giant molecular clouds

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamic simulations to explore how initial density profiles of giant molecular clouds influence star cluster formation modes, cluster properties, and angular momentum distribution, revealing distinct formation pathways.

Contribution

It demonstrates that initial density profiles determine star formation modes and cluster properties, with shallower profiles leading to hierarchical sub-cluster formation and steeper profiles forming central massive clusters.

Findings

Shallower profiles produce distributed sub-clusters that merge hierarchically.

Steeper profiles form centralized massive clusters quickly.

Cluster rotation correlates with initial density profile steepness.

Abstract

We perform a suite of hydrodynamic simulations to investigate how initial density profiles of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) affect their subsequent evolution. We find that the star formation duration and integrated star formation efficiency of the whole clouds are not sensitive to the choice of different profiles but are mainly controlled by the interplay between gravitational collapse and stellar feedback. Despite this similarity, GMCs with different profiles show dramatically different modes of star formation. For shallower profiles, GMCs first fragment into many self-gravitation cores and form sub-clusters that distributed throughout the entire clouds. These sub-clusters are later assembled ``hierarchically'' to central clusters. In contrast, for steeper profiles, a massive cluster is quickly formed at the center of the cloud and then gradually grows its mass via gas accretion. Consequently, central clusters that emerged from clouds with shallower profiles are less massive and show less rotation than those with the steeper profiles. This is because 1) a significant fraction of mass and angular momentum in shallower profiles is stored in the orbital motion of the sub-clusters that are not able to merge into the central clusters 2) frequent hierarchical mergers in the shallower profiles lead to further losses of mass and angular momentum via violent relaxation and tidal disruption. Encouragingly, the degree of cluster rotations in steeper profiles is consistent with recent observations of young and intermediate-age clusters. We speculate that rotating globular clusters are likely formed via an ``accretion'' mode from centrally-concentrated clouds in the early Universe.