Impact of Radiation Feedback on the Formation of Globular Cluster Candidates during Cloud-Cloud Collisions

TL;DR

This study uses radiation-hydrodynamic simulations to investigate how radiation feedback influences the formation of globular cluster candidates during cloud-cloud collisions, highlighting the role of feedback processes in cluster mass and formation dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces idealized radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of GMC collisions to analyze the impact of radiation feedback on globular cluster formation, emphasizing the importance of feedback in cluster mass regulation.

Findings

Radiation feedback reduces cluster mass by about 50%.

Cluster formation occurs through mergers and accretion, not a single collapse.

Supernovae occur after cloud dispersal, affecting metal recycling.

Abstract

To understand the impact of radiation feedback during the formation of a globular cluster (GC), we simulate a head-on collision of two turbulent giant molecular clouds (GMCs). A series of idealized radiation-hydrodynamic simulations is performed, with and without stellar radiation or Type II supernovae. We find that a gravitationally bound, compact star cluster of mass $M_{\rm GC} \sim 10^5\,M_\odot$ forms within $\approx 3\,{\rm Myr}$ when two GMCs with mass $M_{\rm GMC}=3.6\times10^5\,M_\odot$ collide. The GC candidate does not form during a single collapsing event but emerges due to the mergers of local dense gas clumps and gas accretion. The momentum transfer due to the absorption of the ionizing radiation is the dominant feedback process that suppresses the gas collapse and photoionization becomes efficient once a sufficient number of stars form. The cluster mass is larger by a factor of $\sim 2$ when the radiation feedback is neglected, and the difference is slightly more pronounced (16\%) when extreme $\rm Ly\alpha$ feedback is considered in the fiducial run. In the simulations with radiation feedback, supernovae explode after the star-forming clouds are dispersed, and their metal ejecta are not instantaneously recycled to form stars.