Environmental Effects on the Dynamical Evolution of Star Clusters in Turbulent Molecular Clouds

TL;DR

This study investigates how turbulent molecular cloud environments influence the dynamical evolution of star clusters, revealing that gaseous harassment accelerates cluster dispersal and alters density profiles compared to isolated evolution.

Contribution

It introduces a combined N-body and hydrodynamic simulation approach within AMUSE to analyze environmental effects on cluster dynamics, highlighting the impact of gaseous harassment.

Findings

Tidal harassment leads to faster cluster dispersal.

Density distribution evolution differs significantly with environment.

Background turbulence affects advanced cluster stages.

Abstract

Context: Star clusters form within giant molecular clouds that are strongly altered by the feedback action of the massive stars, but the cluster still remains embedded in a dense, highly turbulent medium and interactions with ambient structures may modify its dynamical evolution from that expected if it were isolated. Aims: We aim to study coupling mechanisms between the dynamical evolution of the cluster, accelerated by the mass segregation process, with harassment effects caused by the gaseous environment. Methods: We simulated the cluster dynamical evolution combining $N$-body and hydrodynamic codes within the Astronomical Multipurpose Software Environment (AMUSE). Conclusions: Tidal harassment produces a sparser configuration more rapidly than the isolated reference simulations. The evolution of the asymptotic power-law density distribution exponent also shows substantially different behaviour in the two cases. The background is more effective on clusters in advanced stages of dynamical development.