Cloud Formation and Acceleration in a Radiative Environment

Abstract

In a radiatively heated and cooled medium, the thermal instability is a plausible mechanism for forming clouds, while the radiation force provides a natural acceleration, especially when ions recombine and opacity increases. Here we extend Field's theory to self-consistently account for a radiation force resulting from bound-free and bound-bound transitions in the optically thin limit. We present physical arguments for clouds to be significantly accelerated by a radiation force due to lines during a nonlinear phase of the instability. To qualitatively illustrate our main points, we perform both one and two-dimensional (1-D/2-D) hydrodynamical simulations that allow us to study the nonlinear outcome of the evolution of thermally unstable gas subjected to this radiation force. Our 1-D simulations demonstrate that the thermal instability can produce long-lived clouds that reach a thermal equilibrium between radiative processes and thermal conduction, while the radiation force can indeed accelerate the clouds to supersonic velocities. However, our 2-D simulations reveal that a single cloud with a simple morphology cannot be maintained due to destructive processes, triggered by the Rayleigh-Taylor instability and followed by the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Nevertheless, the resulting cold gas structures are still significantly accelerated before they are ultimately dispersed.