Photoionising feedback in star cluster formation

Abstract

We present the first ever hydrodynamic calculations of star cluster formation that incorporate the effect of feedback from ionising radiation. In our simulations, the ionising source forms in the cluster core at the intersection of several dense filaments of inflowing gas. We show that these filaments collimate ionised outflows and suggest such an environmental origin for at least some observed outflows in regions of massive star formation. Our simulations show both positive feedback (i.e. promotion of star formation in neutral gas compressed by expanding HII regions) and negative feedback (i.e. suppression of the accretion flow in to the central regions). We show that the volume filling factor of ionised gas is very different in our simulations than would result from the case where the central source interacted with an azimuthally smoothed gas density distribution. As expected, gas density is the key parameter in determining whether clusters are unbound by photoionising radiation. Nevertheless, we find - on account of the acceleration of a small fraction of the gas to high velocities in the outflows - that the deposition in the gas of an energy that exceeds the binding energy of the cluster is not a sufficient criterion for unbinding the bulk of the cluster mass.