Formation of Proto-Globular Cluster Clouds by Thermal Instability

TL;DR

This study revisits the formation of proto-globular cluster clouds through thermal instabilities, using numerical simulations to explore conditions under which dense clouds can form and collapse in a protogalactic halo.

Contribution

It provides a detailed numerical analysis of the collapse of overdense clouds, highlighting the mass ranges and density profiles relevant for proto-globular cluster formation.

Findings

Perturbations below ~10^{5.6} M_sun cool isobarically.

Perturbations above ~10^{8} M_sun cool isochorically.

Supersonic collapse leads to high density compression and reduced Jeans mass.

Abstract

Many models of globular cluster formation assume the presence of cold dense clouds in early universe. Here we re-examine the Fall & Rees (1985) model for formation of proto-globular cluster clouds (PGCCs) via thermal instabilities in a protogalactic halo. We first argue, based on the previous study by others, that under the protogalactic environments only nonlinear density inhomogeneities can condense into PGCCs. We then carry out numerical simulations of the collapse of overdense clouds in one-dimensional spherical geometry, including self-gravity and radiative cooling down to T=10^4 K. Since imprinting of Jeans mass at 10^4 K is essential to this model, here we focus on the cases where external UV background radiation prevents the formation of H2 molecules and so prevent the cloud from cooling below 10^4 K. The quantitative results from these simulations can be summarized as follows: 1) Perturbations smaller than M_min ~ (10^{5.6} M_sun) (n_h/0.05 cm3)^{-2} cool isobarically, while perturbations larger than M_max ~ (10^8 M_sun) (n_h/0.05 cm3)^{-2} cool isochorically. On the other hand, intermediate size perturbations (M_min< M_pgcc < M_max) are compressed supersonically. 2) For supersonically collapsing clouds, the density compression factor after they cool to T_c=10^4 K range 10^{2.5}-10^6. 3) For supersonically collapsing clouds the Jeans mass can be reduced to as small as 10^{5.5} M_sun (n_h/0.05 cm3)^{-1/2} at the maximum compression. 4) The density profile of simulated PGCCs can be approximated by a constant core with a halo of rho ~ r^{-2} rather than a singular isothermal sphere.