arXiv subjects

Mark Wardle

Publications and source records attributed to Mark Wardle.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2016

Two-fluid dusty shocks: simple benchmarking problems and applications to protoplanetary discs

The key role that dust plays in the interstellar medium has motivated the development of numerical codes designed to study the coupled evolution of dust and gas in systems such as turbulent molecular clouds and protoplanetary discs. Drift between dust and gas has proven to be important as well as numerically challenging. We provide simple benchmarking problems for dusty gas codes by numerically solving the two-fluid dust-gas equations for steady, plane-parallel shock waves. The two distinct shock solutions to these equations allow a numerical code to test different forms of drag between the two fluids, the strength of that drag and the dust to gas ratio. We also provide an astrophysical application of J-type dust-gas shocks to studying the structure of accretion shocks onto protoplanetary discs. We find that two-fluid effects are most important for grains larger than 1 um, and that the peak dust temperature within an accretion shock provides a signature of the dust-to-gas ratio of the infalling material.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2016

SHOCKFIND - An algorithm to identify magnetohydrodynamic shock waves in turbulent clouds

The formation of stars occurs in the dense molecular cloud phase of the interstellar medium. Observations and numerical simulations of molecular clouds have shown that supersonic magnetised turbulence plays a key role for the formation of stars. Simulations have also shown that a large fraction of the turbulent energy dissipates in shock waves. The three families of MHD shocks --- fast, intermediate and slow --- distinctly compress and heat up the molecular gas, and so provide an important probe of the physical conditions within a turbulent cloud. Here we introduce the publicly available algorithm, SHOCKFIND, to extract and characterise the mixture of shock families in MHD turbulence. The algorithm is applied to a 3-dimensional simulation of a magnetised turbulent molecular cloud, and we find that both fast and slow MHD shocks are present in the simulation. We give the first prediction of the mixture of turbulence-driven MHD shock families in this molecular cloud, and present their distinct distributions of sonic and Alfvenic Mach numbers. Using subgrid one-dimensional models of MHD shocks we estimate that ~0.03 % of the volume of a typical molecular cloud in the Milky Way will be shock heated above 50 K, at any time during the lifetime of the cloud. We discuss the impact of this shock heating on the dynamical evolution of molecular clouds.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Signatures of fast and slow magnetohydrodynamic shocks in turbulent molecular clouds

The character of star formation is intimately related to the supersonic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulent dynamics of the molecular clouds in which stars form. A significant amount of the turbulent energy dissipates in low velocity shocks. Fast and slow MHD shocks differ in how they compress and heat the molecular gas, and so their radiative signatures reveal distinct physical conditions. We use a two-fluid model to compare one-dimensional fast and slow MHD shocks propagating at low speeds (a few km/s). Fast shocks are magnetically driven, forcing ion species to stream through the neutral gas ahead of the shock front. This magnetic precursor heats the gas sufficiently to create a large, warm transition zone where all the fluid variables smoothly change in the shock front. In contrast, slow shocks are driven by gas pressure, and neutral species collide with ion species in a thin hot slab that closely resembles an ordinary gas dynamic shock. We consider shocks at velocities $v_s = 2$-$4$ km/s and preshock Hydrogen nuclei densities $n_\mathrm{H} = 10^2$-$10^4$ cm$^{-3}$. We include a simple oxygen chemistry and cooling by CO, H$_2$ and H$_2$O. CO rotational lines above $J = 6\to 5$ are more strongly excited in slow shocks. These slow shock signatures may have already been observed in infrared dark clouds in the Milky Way.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2015

Magnetic fields in gaps surrounding giant protoplanets

Giant protoplanets evacuate a gap in their host protoplanetary disc, which gas must cross before it can be accreted. A magnetic field is likely carried into the gap, potentially influencing the flow. Gap crossing has been simulated with varying degrees of attention to field evolution (pure hydrodynamical, ideal, and resistive MHD), but as yet there has been no detailed assessment of the role of the field accounting for all three key non-ideal MHD effects: Ohmic resistivity, ambipolar diffusion, and Hall drift. We present a detailed investigation of gap magnetic field structure as determined by non-ideal effects. We assess susceptibility to turbulence induced by the magnetorotational instability, and angular momentum loss from large-scale fields. As full non-ideal simulations are computationally expensive, we take an a posteriori approach, estimating MHD quantities from the pure hydrodynamical gap crossing simulation by Tanigawa et al. (2012). We calculate the ionisation fraction and estimate field strength and geometry to determine the strength of non-ideal effects. We find that the protoplanetary disc field would be easily drawn into the gap and circumplanetary disc. Hall drift dominates, so that much of the gap is conditionally MRI unstable depending on the alignment of the field and disc rotation axes. Field alignment also influences the strong toroidal field component permeating the gap. Large-scale magnetic forces are small in the circumplanetary disc, indicating they cannot drive accretion there. However, turbulence will be key during satellite growth as it affects critical disc features, such as the location of the ice line.

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

On the origin of the central 1" hole in the stellar disk of Sgr A* and the Fermi gamma-ray bubbles

The supermassive black hole Sgr A* at the center of the Galaxy is surrounded by two misaligned disks of young, massive stars extending from ~0.04 to 0.4 pc. The stellar surface density increases as ~ r^-2 towards Sgr A* but is truncated within 1" (0.04pc). We explore the origin of this annulus using a model in which star formation occurs in a disk of gas created through the partial capture of a gas cloud as it sweeps through the inner few parsecs of the galaxy and temporarily engulfs Sgr A*. We identify the locations within which star formation and/or accretion onto Sgr A* take place. Within 0.04 pc the disk is magnetically active and the associated heating and enhanced pressure prevents the disk from becoming self gravitating. Instead, it forms a magneto-turbulent disk that drains onto Sgr A* within 3 Myr. Meanwhile, fragmentation of the gas beyond the central 0.04 pc hole creates the observed young stellar disk. The two large scale bubbles of gamma-ray emission extending perpendicular to the Galactic plane may be created by a burst of accretion of ~10^5 Msun of gas lying between 0.01 and 0.03 pc. The observed stellar ages imply that this capture event occurred ~10^6.5 yr ago, thus such events occurring over the life time of the Galaxy could have significantly contributed to the current mass of Sgr A* and to the inner few parsec of the nuclear star cluster. We suggest that these events also occur in extragalactic systems.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2014

Accretion in giant planet circumplanetary disks

During the final growth phase of giant planets, accretion is thought to be controlled by a surrounding circumplanetary disk. Current astrophysical accretion disk models rely on hydromagnetic turbulence or gravitoturbulence as the source of effective viscosity within the disk. However, the magnetically-coupled accreting region in these models is so limited that the disk may not support inflow at all radii, or at the required rate. Here, we examine the conditions needed for self-consistent accretion, in which the disk is susceptible to accretion driven by magnetic fields or gravitational instability. We model the disk as a Shakura-Sunyaev $α$ disk and calculate the level of ionisation, the strength of coupling between the field and disk using Ohmic, Hall and Ambipolar diffusevities for both an MRI and vertical field, and the strength of gravitational instability. We find that the standard constant-$α$ disk is only coupled to the field by thermal ionisation within $30\,R_J$ with strong magnetic diffusivity prohibiting accretion through the bulk of the midplane. In light of the failure of the constant-$α$ disk to produce accretion consistent with its viscosity we drop the assumption of constant-$α$ and present an alternate model in which $α$ varies radially according to the level magnetic turbulence or gravitoturbulence. We find that a vertical field may drive accretion across the entire disk, whereas MRI can drive accretion out to $\sim200\,R_J$, beyond which Toomre's $Q=1$ and gravitoturbulence dominates. The disks are relatively hot ($T\gtrsim800\,$K), and consequently massive ($M_{\text{disk}}\sim0.5\,M_J$).

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2014

Constraints on Common Envelope Magnetic Fields from Observations of Jets in Planetary Nebulae

The common envelope (CE) interaction describes the swallowing of a nearby companion by a growing, evolving star. CEs that take place during the asymptotic giant branch phase of the primary and may lead to the formation of a planetary nebula (PN) with a post-CE close binary in the middle. We have used published observations of masses and kinematics of jets in four post-CE PN to infer physical characteristics of the CE interaction. In three of the four systems studied, Abell 63, ETHOS 1 and the Necklace PN, the kinematics indicate that the jets were launched a few thousand years before the CE and we favour a scenario where this happened before Roche lobe overflow, although better models of wind accretion and wind Roche lobe overflow are needed. The magnetic fields inferred to launch pre-CE jets are of the order of a few Gauss. In the fourth case, NGC 6778, the kinematics indicate that the jets were launched about 3000 years after the CE interaction. Magnetic fields of the order of a few hundreds to a few thousands Gauss are inferred in this case, approximately in line with predictions of post-CE magnetic fields. However, we remark that in the case of this system, it is impossible to find a reasonable scenario for the formation of the two jet pairs observed: the small orbital separation would preclude the formation of even one accretion disk able to supply the necessary accretion rate to cause the observed jets.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2013

An analysis of HCN observations of the Circumnuclear Disk at the galactic centre

The Circumnuclear Disk (CND) is a torus of dust and molecular gas rotating about the galactic centre and extending from approximately 1.6pc to 7pc from the central massive black hole, SgrA*. Large Velocity Gradient modelling of the intensities of the HCN 1-0, 3-2 and 4-3 transitions is used to infer hydrogen density and HCN optical depth. From HCN observations we find the molecular hydrogen density ranges from 0.1 to 2 $\times$ 10$^{6}$ cm$^{-3}$, about an order of magnitude less than inferred previously. The 1-0 line is weakly inverted with line-centre optical depth approx $-$0.1, in stark contrast to earlier estimates of 4. The estimated mass of the ring is approximately 3 $-$ 4 $\times$ 10$^{5}$M$_{\odot}$ consistent with estimates based on thermal dust emission. The tidal shear in the disk implies that star formation is not expected to occur without some significant triggering event.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2013

Magnetic diffusion driven shear instability of solar flux tubes

Macroscopic gas motions are widespread throughout the solar atmosphere and shearing motions couple to the non--ideal effects, destabilising low frequency fluctuations in the medium. The origin of this non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic instability lies in the collisional coupling of the neutral particles to the magnetized plasma in the presence of a sheared background flow. Unsurprisingly, the maximum growth rate and most unstable wavenumber depend on the flow gradient and ambient diffusivities. The orientation of the magnetic field, velocity shears and perturbation wave vector play a crucial role in assisting the instability. When the magnetic field and wave vector are both vertical, ambipolar and Ohm diffusion can be combined as Pedersen diffusion and cause only damping; in this case only Hall drift in tandem with shear flow drives the instability. However, for non-vertical fields and oblique wave vectors, both ambipolar diffusion and Hall drift are destabilizing. We investigate the stability of magnetic elements in the network and internetwork regions. The shear scale is not yet observationally determined, but assuming a typical shear flow gradient $\sim 0.1 \,\mbox{s}^{-1}$ we show that the magnetic diffusion shear instability grows on a time scale of one minute. Thus, it is plausible that network--internetwork magnetic elements are subject to this fast growing, diffusive shear instability, which could play an important role in driving low frequency turbulence in the plasma in the solar photosphere and chromosphere.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2012

The Hall effect in accretion flows

Magnetic diffusion in accretion flows changes the structure and angular momentum of the accreting material. We present two power law similarity solutions for flattened accretion flows in the presence of magnetic diffusion: a secularly-evolving Keplerian disc and a magnetically-diluted free fall onto the central object. The influence of Hall diffusion on the solutions is evident even when this is small compared to ambipolar and Ohmic diffusion, as the surface density, accretion rate and angular momentum in the flow all depend upon the product η_H(B.Ω), and the inclusion of Hall diffusion may be the solution to the magnetic braking catastrophe of star formation simulations.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2012

Hall instability of solar flux tubes

The magnetic network which consists of vertical flux tubes located in intergranular lanes is dominated by Hall drift in the photosphere-lower chromosphere region ($\lesssim 1 Mm$). In the internetwork regions, Hall drift dominates above $0.25 Mm$ in the photosphere and below $2.5 Mm$ in the chromosphere. Although Hall drift does not cause any dissipation in the ambient plasma, it can destabilise the flux tubes and magnetic elements in the presence of azimuthal shear flow. The physical mechanism of this instability is quite simple: the shear flow twists the radial magnetic field and generates azimuthal field; torsional oscillations of the azimuthal field in turn generates the radial field completing feedback loop. The maximum growth rate of Hall instability is proportional to the absolute value of the shear gradient and is dependent on the ambient diffusivity. The diffusivity also determines the most unstable wavelength which is smaller for weaker fields. We apply the result of local stability analysis to the network and internetwork magnetic elements and show that the maximum growth rate for kilogauss field occurs around $0.5 Mm$ and decreases with increasing altitude. However, for a $120 G$ field, the maximum growth rate remains almost constant in the entire photosphere-lower chromosphere except in a small region of lower photosphere. For shear flow gradient $\sim 0.01 s^{-1}$, the Hall growth time is 10 minute near the footpoint. Therefore, network fields are likely to be unstable in the photosphere, whereas internetwork fields could be unstable in the entire photosphere-chromosphere. Thus the Hall instability can play an important role in generating low frequency turbulence which can heat the chromosphere.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2012

The Origin of Keplerian Megamaser Disks

Several examples of thin, Keplerian, sub-parsec megamaser disks have been discovered in the nuclei of active galaxies and used to precisely determine the mass of their host black holes. We show that there is an empirical linear correlation between the disk radius and black hole mass and that such disks are naturally formed as molecular clouds pass through the galactic nucleus and temporarily engulf the central supermassive black hole. For initial cloud column densities below about 10^{23.5} cm^{-2} the disk is non-self gravitating, but for higher cloud columns the disk would fragment and produce a compact stellar disk similar to that observed around Sgr A* at the galactic centre.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

OH Masers and Supernova Remnants

OH(1720 MHz) masers are created by the interaction of supernova remnants with molecular clouds. These masers are pumped by collisions in warm, shocked molecular gas with OH column densities in the range 10^{16}--10^{17} cm^{-2}. Excitation calculations suggest that inversion of the 6049 MHz OH line may occur at the higher column densities that have been inferred from main-line absorption studies of supernova remnants with the Green Bank Telescope. OH(6049 MHz) masers have therefore been proposed as a complementary indicator of remnant-cloud interaction. This motivated searches for 6049 MHz maser emission from supernova remnants using the Parkes 63 m and Effelsberg 100 m telescopes, and the Australia Telescope Compact Array. A total of forty-one remnants have been examined by one or more of these surveys, but without success. To check the accuracy of the OH column densities inferred from the single-dish observations we modelled OH absorption at 1667 MHz observed with the Very Large Array towards three supernova remnants, IC 443, W44 and 3C 391. The results are mixed -- the OH column is revised upwards in IC443, downwards in 3C391, and is somewhat reduced in W44. We conclude that OH columns exceeding 10^{17} cm^{-2} are indeed present in some supernova remnants and so the lack of any detections is not explained by low OH column density. We discuss the possibility that non-local line overlap is responsible for suppressing the inversion of the 6049 MHz line.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2012

A Scaling Relation Between Megamaser Disk Radius and Black Hole Mass in Active Galactic Nuclei

Several thin, Keplerian, sub-parsec megamaser disks have been discovered in the nuclei of active galaxies and used to precisely determine the mass of their host black holes. We show that there is an empirical linear correlation between the disk radius and the black hole mass. We demonstrate that such disks are naturally formed by the partial capture of molecular clouds passing through the galactic nucleus and temporarily engulfing the central supermassive black hole. Imperfect cancellation of the angular momenta of the cloud material colliding after passing on opposite sides of the hole leads to the formation of a compact disk. The radial extent of the disk is determined by the efficiency of this process and the Bondi-Hoyle capture radius of the black hole, and naturally produces the empirical linear correlation of the radial extent of the maser distribution with black hole mass. The disk has sufficient column density to allow X-ray irradiation from the central source to generate physical and chemical conditions conducive to the formation of 22 GHz H2O masers. For initial cloud column densities less than ~10^{23.5} cm^-2 the disk is non-self gravitating, consistent with the ordered kinematics of the edge-on megamaser disks; for higher cloud columns the disk would fragment and produce a compact stellar disk similar to that observed around Sgr A* at the galactic centre.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Magnetorotational instability in magnetic diffusion dominated accretion discs

We investigate the stability of partially ionised, differentially rotating, diffusive disc threaded by both azimuthal and vertical magnetic field. The general stability criterion of such a disc in the presence of axisymmetric fluctuations can be stated purely in terms of ambipolar and Hall diffusivities. It is shown that the disc is magnetorotationally unstable if the sum of scaled ambipolar and Hall diffusivities are larger than some numerical constant determined by the rotation profile of the disc. This criterion suggests that the diffusive discs are always unstable to almost radial fluctuations. The field geometry and obliqueness of wavevector (encapsulated together in the topological factor $g$), plays dual role of not only assisting MRI in ambipolar--Ohm dominated disc but also making otherwise stable region in Hall--ambipolar diffusion plane unstable.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2012

The Hall effect in star formation

Magnetic fields play an important role in star formation by regulating the removal of angular momentum from collapsing molecular cloud cores. Hall diffusion is known to be important to the magnetic field behaviour at many of the intermediate densities and field strengths encountered during the gravitational collapse of molecular cloud cores into protostars, and yet its role in the star formation process is not well-studied. We present a semianalytic self-similar model of the collapse of rotating isothermal molecular cloud cores with both Hall and ambipolar diffusion, and similarity solutions that demonstrate the profound influence of the Hall effect on the dynamics of collapse. The solutions show that the size and sign of the Hall parameter can change the size of the protostellar disc by up to an order of magnitude and the protostellar accretion rate by fifty per cent when the ratio of the Hall to ambipolar diffusivities is varied between -0.5 <= eta_H / eta_A <= 0.2. These changes depend upon the orientation of the magnetic field with respect to the axis of rotation and create a preferred handedness to the solutions that could be observed in protostellar cores using next-generation instruments such as ALMA. Hall diffusion also determines the strength and position of the shocks that bound the pseudo and rotationally-supported discs, and can introduce subshocks that further slow accretion onto the protostar. In cores that are not initially rotating Hall diffusion can even induce rotation, which could give rise to disc formation and resolve the magnetic braking catastrophe. The Hall effect clearly influences the dynamics of gravitational collapse and its role in controlling the magnetic braking and radial diffusion of the field merits further exploration in numerical simulations of star formation.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2011

Hall diffusion and the magnetorotational instability in protoplanetary discs

The destabilising effect of Hall diffusion in a Keplerian disc allows the MRI to occur for much lower ionisation levels than would otherwise be possible. However, simulations suggest that the consequences for the saturated state are not as significant as suggested by the linear instability. Close inspection reveals that that the simulations have not yet probed the Hall-dominated regime. Here we revisit the effect of Hall diffusion on the MRI and the implications for the extent of MHD turbulence in protoplanetary discs. We conduct a local stability analysis for a vertical, weak magnetic field subject to axisymmetric perturbations with a vertical wave vector. The diffusivity dependence is presented using analytic expressions and contours in the eta_H - eta_P plane for the maximum growth rate and corresponding wave number, the upper cut-off for unstable wave numbers, and the loci that divide the plane into regions of different characteristic behaviour. In the highly-diffusive limit the magnetic field decouples from the fluid perturbations and the diffusive MRI reduces to a diffusive plane-parallel shear instability with effective shear rate 1.5 Omega. We give analytic expressions for the growth rate and wave number of the most unstable mode. Finally, we illustrate the critical effect of Hall diffusion on the extent of dead zones in protoplanetary discs by applying a local stability criterion to a simple model of the minimum-mass solar nebula at 1 au, including x-ray and cosmic-ray ionisation and a population of 1 micron grains. Hall diffusion increases or decreases the MRI-active column density by an order of magnitude or more, depending on whether B is parallel or antiparallel to the rotation axis, respectively. Existing estimates of the depth of magnetically active layers in protoplanetary discs are likely to be wildly inaccurate. [Abridged]

astro-ph.EP↗

arXiv2010

X-ray echoes of infrared flaring in Sgr A*

Sgr A* exhibits flaring in the infrared several times each day, occasionally accompanied by flaring in X-rays. The infrared flares are believed to arise through synchrotron emission from a transient population of accelerated electrons. The X-ray flaring has been interpreted as self-synchrotron-compton, inverse compton, or synchrotron emission associated with the transient electrons. Here I consider the upscattering of infrared flare photons by relativistic thermal electrons in the accretion flow around Sgr A*. Typical profiles of electron density and temperature in the accretion flow are adopted and the X-ray light curves produced by upscattering of infrared flare photons by the accretion flow are computed. Peak X-ray luminosities between 1e33 and 1e34 erg/s are attained for a 10 mJy near-infrared flare, compatible with observed coincident infrared/X-ray flares from Sgr A*. Even if this process is not responsible for the observed flares it still presents a serious constraint on accretion flow models, which must avoid over-producing X-rays and also predicting observable time lags between flaring in infrared and in X-rays. Future high-resolution infrared instrumentation will be able to place the location of the infrared flare and in coordination with the X-ray would severely constrain the disc geometry and the radial profiles of electron density and temperature in the accretion flow.

astro-ph.GA↗