Thermal Instability and Multiphase Gas in the Simulated Interstellar Medium with Conduction, Viscosity and Magnetic Fields

TL;DR

This study uses 2D simulations to explore how thermal instability, influenced by initial conditions, conduction, viscosity, and magnetic fields, leads to multiphase cloud formation and dynamics in the interstellar medium.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the effects of initial density perturbations, conduction, viscosity, and magnetic fields on thermal instability and cloud evolution in the ISM.

Findings

Initial perturbation spectra significantly affect cloud properties.

Cloud disruption occurs via Darrieus--Landau instability.

Magnetic fields influence filament alignment and cloud morphology.

Abstract

Thermal instability (TI) plays a crucial role in the formation of multiphase structures and their dynamics in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and is a leading theory for cold cloud creation in various astrophysical environments. In this paper we use two-dimensional (2D) simulations to investigate thermal instability under the influence of various initial conditions and physical processes. We experiment with Gaussian random field (GRF) density perturbations of different initial power spectra. We also enroll thermal conduction and physical viscosity in isotropic hydrodynamic and anisotropic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. We find that the initial GRF spectral index $\alpha$ has a dramatic impact on the pure hydrodynamic development of thermal instability, influencing the size, number and motions of clouds. Cloud fragmentation happens due to two mechanisms: tearing and contraction rebound. In the runs with isotropic conduction and viscosity, the structures and dynamics of the clouds are dominated by evaporation and condensation flows in the non-linear regime, and the flow speed is regulated by viscosity. Cloud disruptions happen as a result of the Darrieus--Landau instability (DLI). Although at very late times, all individual clouds merge into one cold structure in all hydrodynamic runs. In the MHD case, the cloud structure is determined by both the initial perturbations and the initial magnetic field strength. In high $\beta$ runs, anisotropic conduction causes dense filaments to align with the local magnetic fields and the field direction can become reoriented. Strong magnetic fields suppress cross-field contraction and cold filaments can form along or perpendicular to the initial fields.