PRISM: A Non-Equilibrium, Multiphase Interstellar Medium Model for Radiation Hydrodynamics Simulations of Galaxies

TL;DR

PRISM is a comprehensive non-equilibrium multiphase ISM model integrated into RAMSES-RTZ, enabling detailed simulations of galaxy environments by accurately modeling thermochemistry, cooling, heating, and non-equilibrium effects across various gas phases.

Contribution

The paper introduces PRISM, a novel non-equilibrium ISM model with an extensive chemistry network, implemented in RAMSES-RTZ, advancing the simulation of galaxy ISM physics.

Findings

Most ISM gas is near thermal equilibrium or slightly unstable.

Non-equilibrium electron fractions can differ significantly from equilibrium.

Recombination lags and cosmic-ray heating cause electron fraction variations.

Abstract

We introduce the PRISM interstellar medium (ISM) model for thermochemistry and its implementation in the RAMSES-RTZ code. The model includes a non-equilibrium primordial, metal, and molecular chemistry network for 115 species coupled to on-the-fly multifrequency radiation transport. PRISM accurately accounts for the dominant ISM cooling and heating processes in the low-density regime (i.e. $\rho<10^5\ {\rm cm^{-3}}$), including photoheating, photoelectric heating, H$_2$ heating/cooling, cosmic-ray heating, H/He cooling, metal-line cooling, CO cooling, and dust cooling (recombination and gas-grain collisions). We validate the model by comparing 1D equilibrium simulations across six dex in metallicity to existing 1D ISM models in the literature. We apply PRISM to high-resolution (4.5 pc) isolated dwarf galaxy simulations that include state-of-the-art models for star formation and stellar feedback to take an inventory of which cooling and heating processes dominate each different gas phase of a galaxy and to understand the importance of non-equilibrium effects. We show that most of the ISM gas is either close to thermal equilibrium or exhibits a slight cooling instability, while from a chemical perspective, the non-equilibrium electron fraction is often more than three times higher or lower than the equilibrium value, which impacts cooling, heating, and observable emission lines. Electron enhancements are attributed to recombination lags while deficits are shown to be due to rapid cosmic-ray heating. The PRISM model and its coupling to RAMSES-RTZ is applicable to a wide variety of astrophysical scenarios, from cosmological simulations to isolated giant molecular clouds, and is particularly useful for understanding how changes to ISM physics impact observable quantities such as metallic emission lines.