Criteria for gravitational instability and quasi-isolated gravitational collapse in turbulent medium

Li, Guang-Xing (2017): Criteria for gravitational instability and quasi-isolated gravitational collapse in turbulent medium. In: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 465, No. 1: pp. 667-671

Abstract

We study the evolution of structures in turbulent, self-gravitating media, and present an analytical criterion M-crit approximate to epsilon(2/3)(cascade) eta(-2/3) G(-1)l(5/3) (where M-crit is the critical mass, l is the scale, epsilon(cascade) approximate to eta sigma(3)(v)/l is the turbulence energy dissipation rate of the ambient medium, G is the gravitational constant, sigma(v) is the velocity dispersion and eta approximate to 0.2 is an efficiency parameter) for an object to undergo quasi-isolated gravitational collapse. The criterion also defines the critical scale (l(crit) approximate to epsilon(1/2)(cascade) eta(-1/2)G(-3/4)rho(-3/4)) for turbulent gravitational instability to develop. The analytical formalism explains the size dependence of the masses of the progenitors of star clusters (M-cluster similar to R-cluster(1.67)) in our Galaxy.

• Item Type: Journal article
• Faculties: Physics
• Subjects: 500 Science > 530 Physics
• ISSN: 0035-8711
• Language: English