Massive core/star formation triggered by cloud-cloud collision: II High-speed collisions of magnetized clouds

TL;DR

This study investigates how magnetic fields influence massive core formation during high-speed cloud-cloud collisions, revealing that magnetic effects can both promote and hinder core growth depending on collision duration and speed.

Contribution

It extends previous hydrodynamic models by incorporating magnetic fields, demonstrating their dual role in either aiding or suppressing massive core formation in colliding clouds.

Findings

Magnetic fields hinder core growth after collisions.

High collision speeds require higher column densities for star formation.

Magnetic pressure causes shock region expansion and core destruction.

Abstract

We study the effects of the magnetic fields on the formation of massive, self-gravitationally bound cores (MBCs) in high-speed cloud-cloud collisions (CCCs). Extending our previous work (Sakre et al. 2021), we perform magnetohydrodynamic simulations following the high-speed (20 - 40 km s$^{-1}$) collisions between two magnetized (4 $\mu$G initially), turbulent clouds of different sizes in the range of 7 - 20 pc. We show that a magnetic field effect hinders the core growth, particularly after a short-duration collision during which cores cannot get highly bound. In such a case, a shocked region created by the collision rapidly expands to the ambient medium owing to the enhanced magnetic pressure, resulting in the destruction of the highly unbound cores and suppression of gas accretion to massive cores. This negative effect on the MBC formation is a phenomenon not seen in the past hydrodynamic simulations of similar CCC models. Together with our previous work, we conclude that the magnetic fields provide the two competing effects on the MBC formation in CCC; while they promote the mass accumulation into cores during a collision, they operate to destroy cores or hinder the core growth after the collision. The duration of collision determines which effect prevails, providing the maximum collision speed for the MBC formation with given colliding clouds. Our results agree with the observed trend among CCC samples in the corresponding column density range; clouds with higher relative velocity require higher column density for the formation of massive stars (Enokiya et al. 2021).