arXiv subjects

Shu-ichiro Inutsuka

Publications and source records attributed to Shu-ichiro Inutsuka.

At least 91 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

A centrally concentrated sub-solar mass starless core in the Taurus L1495 filamentary complex

The formation scenario of brown dwarfs is still unclear because observational studies to investigate its initial condition are quite limited. Our systematic survey of nearby low-mass star-forming regions using the Atacama Compact Array (aka Morita array) and the IRAM 30 m telescope in 1.2 mm continuum has identified a centrally concentrated starless condensation with a central H$_2$ volume density of $\sim$10$^6$ cm$^{-3}$, MC5-N, connected to a narrow (width $\sim$0.03 pc) filamentary cloud in the Taurus L1495 region. The mass of the core is $\sim$0.2-0.4 $M_{\odot}$, which is an order of magnitude smaller than typical low-mass prestellar cores. Taking into account a typical core to star formation efficiency for prestellar cores ($\sim$20%-40%) in nearby molecular clouds, brown dwarf(s) or very low-mass star(s) may be going to be formed in this core. We have found possible substructures at the high-density portion of the core, although much higher angular resolution observation is needed to clearly confirm them. The subsequent N$_2$H$^+$ and N$_2$D$^+$ observations using the Nobeyama 45 m telescope have confirmed the high-deuterium fractionation ($\sim$30%). These dynamically and chemically evolved features indicate that this core is on the verge of proto-brown dwarf or very low-mass star formation and is an ideal source to investigate the initial conditions of such low-mass objects via gravitational collapse and/or fragmentation of the filamentary cloud complex.

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arXiv2019

The Generalized Nonlinear Ohm's Law: How a Strong Electric Field Influences Non-ideal MHD Effects in Dusty Protoplanetary Disks

The magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) of protoplanetary disks are strongly subject to the non-ideal MHD effects arising from the low ionization fraction of the disk gas. A strong electric field induced by gas motions can heat ionized gas particles and can thereby affect the ionization balance in the disks. Our previous studies revealed that in dusty protoplanetary disks, the Ohmic conductivity decreases with increasing electric field strength until the electrical breakdown of the disk gas occurs. In this study, we extend our previous work to more general cases where both electric and magnetic fields affect the motion of plasma particles, allowing us to study the impacts of plasma heating on all non-ideal MHD effects: Ohmic, Hall, and ambipolar diffusion. We find that the upper limit on the electric current we previously derived applies even in the presence of magnetic fields. Although the Hall and ambipolar resistivities can either increase or decrease with electric field strength depending on the abundance of charged dust grains, the Ohmic resistivity always increases with electric field strength. An order-of-magnitude estimate suggests that a large-scale electric current generated by gas motions in the inner part of protoplanetary disks could exceed the upper limit. This implies that MHD motions of the inner disk, such as the motion driven by the Hall-shear instability, could either get suppressed or trigger electrical breakdown (lightning discharge). This may have important implications for gas accretion and chondrule formation in the inner part of protoplanetary disks.

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arXiv2019

The JCMT BISTRO Survey: The Magnetic Field of the Barnard 1 Star-Forming Region

We present the POL-2 850 $μ$m linear polarization map of the Barnard 1 clump in the Perseus molecular cloud complex from the B-fields In STar-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. We find a trend of decreasing polarization fraction as a function of total intensity, which we link to depolarization effects towards higher density regions of the cloud. We then use the polarization data at 850 $μ$m to infer the plane-of-sky orientation of the large-scale magnetic field in Barnard 1. This magnetic field runs North-South across most of the cloud, with the exception of B1-c where it turns more East-West. From the dispersion of polarization angles, we calculate a turbulence correlation length of $5.0 \pm 2.5$ arcsec ($1500$ au), and a turbulent-to-total magnetic energy ratio of $0.5 \pm 0.3$ inside the cloud. We combine this turbulent-to-total magnetic energy ratio with observations of NH$_3$ molecular lines from the Green Bank Ammonia Survey (GAS) to estimate the strength of the plane-of-sky component of the magnetic field through the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi method. With a plane-of-sky amplitude of $120 \pm 60$ $μ$G and a criticality criterion $λ_c = 3.0 \pm 1.5$, we find that Barnard 1 is a supercritical molecular cloud with a magnetic field nearly dominated by its turbulent component.

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arXiv2019

The Early Stage of Molecular Cloud Formation by Compression of Two-phase Atomic Gases

We investigate the formation of molecular clouds from atomic gas by using three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations, including non-equilibrium chemical reactions and heating/cooling processes. We consider super-Alfvénic head-on colliding flows of atomic gas possessing the two-phase structure that consists of HI clouds and surrounding warm diffuse gas. We examine how the formation of molecular clouds depends on the angle $θ$ between the upstream flow and the mean magnetic field. We find that there is a critical angle $θ_\mathrm{cr}$ above which the shock-amplified magnetic field controls the post-shock gas dynamics. If the atomic gas is compressed almost along the mean magnetic field ($θ\llθ_\mathrm{cr}$), super-Alfvénic anisotropic turbulence is maintained by the accretion of the highly inhomogeneous upstream atomic gas. As a result, a greatly extended turbulence-dominated post-shock layer is generated. Around $θ\sim θ_\mathrm{cr}$, the shock-amplified magnetic field weakens the post-shock turbulence, leading to a dense post-shock layer. For $θ\gg θ_\mathrm{cr}$, the strong magnetic pressure suppresses the formation of cold dense clouds. Efficient molecular cloud formation is expected if $θ$ is less than a few times $θ_\mathrm{cr}$. Developing an analytic model and performing a parameter survey, we obtain an analytic formula for the critical angle as a function of the mean density, collision speed, and field strength of the upstream atomic gas. The critical angle is found to be less than $\sim 15^\circ$ as long as the field strength is larger than $1~μ$G, indicating that the probability of occurrence of compression with $θ<θ_\mathrm{cr}$ is limited if shock waves come from various directions.

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arXiv2019

JCMT BISTRO survey: Magnetic Fields within the Hub-Filament Structure in IC 5146

We present the 850 $μ$m polarization observations toward the IC5146 filamentary cloud taken using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2) and its associated polarimeter (POL-2), mounted on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), as part of the B-fields In STar forming Regions Observations (BISTRO). This work is aimed at revealing the magnetic field morphology within a core-scale ($\lesssim 1.0$ pc) hub-filament structure (HFS) located at the end of a parsec-scale filament. To investigate whether or not the observed polarization traces the magnetic field in the HFS, we analyze the dependence between the observed polarization fraction and total intensity using a Bayesian approach with the polarization fraction described by the Rice likelihood function, which can correctly describe the probability density function (PDF) of the observed polarization fraction for low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) data. We find a power-law dependence between the polarization fraction and total intensity with an index of 0.56 in $A_V\sim$ 20--300 mag regions, suggesting that the dust grains in these dense regions can still be aligned with magnetic fields in the IC5146 regions. Our polarization maps reveal a curved magnetic field, possibly dragged by the contraction along the parsec-scale filament. We further obtain a magnetic field strength of 0.5$\pm$0.2 mG toward the central hub using the Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi method, corresponding to a mass-to-flux criticality of $\sim$ $1.3\pm0.4$ and an Alfvénic Mach number of $<$0.6. These results suggest that gravity and magnetic field is currently of comparable importance in the HFS, and turbulence is less important.

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arXiv2019

Collisional Elongation: Possible Origin of Extremely Elongated Shape of 1I/`Oumuamua

Light curve observations of a recently discovered interstellar object 1I/`Oumuamua suggest that this object has an extremely elongated shape with the axis ratio 0.3 or smaller. Planetesimal collisions can produce irregular shapes including elongated shapes. In this paper, we suggest that the extremely elongated shape of 1I/`Oumuamua may be the result of such an impact. To find detailed impact conditions to form the extremely elongated objects, we conduct numerical simulations of planetesimal collisions using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics method for elastic dynamics with self-gravity and interparticle friction. Impacts into strengthless target planetesimals with radius 50 m are conducted with various ratios of impactor mass to target mass q, friction angles phi_d, impact velocities v_imp, and impact angles theta_imp. We find that impacts with q \geq 0.5, phi_d \geq 40 degrees, v_imp \leq 40 degrees, and theta_imp \leq 30 degrees produce remnants with the ratio of intermediate to major axis length less than 0.3. This impact condition suggests that the parent protoplanetary disk in the planetesimal collision stage was weakly turbulent (alpha < 10^{-4} for the inner disk) and composed of planetesimals smaller than ~ 7 km to ensure small impact velocity.

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arXiv2019

FOREST Unbiased Galactic Plane Imaging Survey with the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope (FUGIN) V: Dense gas mass fraction of molecular gas in the Galactic plane

Recent observations of the nearby Galactic molecular clouds indicate that the dense gas in molecular clouds have quasi-universal properties on star formation, and observational studies of extra galaxies have shown a galactic-scale correlation between the star formation rate (SFR) and surface density of molecular gas. To reach a comprehensive understanding of both properties, it is important to quantify the fractional mass of the dense gas in molecular clouds f_DG. In particular, for the Milky Way (MW), there are no previous studies resolving the f_DG disk over a scale of several kpc. In this study, the f_DG was measured over 5kpc in the first quadrant of the MW, based on the CO J=1-0 data in l=10-50 deg obtained as part of the FOREST Unbiased Galactic Plane Imaging Survey with the Nobeyama 45-m Telescope (FUGIN) project. The total molecular mass was measured using 12CO, and the dense gas mass was estimated using C18O. The fractional masses including f_DG in the region within ~30% of the distances to the tangential points of the Galactic rotation (e.g., the Galactic Bar, Far-3kpc Arm, Norma Arm, Scutum Arm, Sagittarius Arm, and inter-arm regions) were measured. As a result, an averaged f_DG of 2.9^{+2.6}_{-2.6} % was obtained for the entirety of the target region. This low value suggests that dense gas formation is the primary factor of inefficient star formation in galaxies. It was also found that the f_DG shows large variations depending on the structures in the MW disk. The f_DG in the Galactic arms were estimated to be ~4-5%, while those in the bar and inter-arm regions were as small as ~0.1-0.4%. These results indicate that the formation/destruction processes of the dense gas and their timescales are different for different regions in the MW, leading to the differences in SFRs.

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arXiv2019

The JCMT BISTRO Survey: The Magnetic Field In The Starless Core $ρ$ Ophiuchus C

We report 850~$μ$m dust polarization observations of a low-mass ($\sim$12 $M_{\odot}$) starless core in the $ρ$ Ophiuchus cloud, Ophiuchus C, made with the POL-2 instrument on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) as part of the JCMT B-fields In STar-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey. We detect an ordered magnetic field projected on the plane of sky in the starless core. The magnetic field across the $\sim$0.1~pc core shows a predominant northeast-southwest orientation centering between $\sim$40$^\circ$ to $\sim$100$^\circ$, indicating that the field in the core is well aligned with the magnetic field in lower-density regions of the cloud probed by near-infrared observations and also the cloud-scale magnetic field traced by Planck observations. The polarization percentage ($P$) decreases with an increasing total intensity ($I$) with a power-law index of $-$1.03 $\pm$ 0.05. We estimate the plane-of-sky field strength ($B_{\mathrm{pos}}$) using modified Davis-Chandrasekhar-Fermi (DCF) methods based on structure function (SF), auto-correlation (ACF), and unsharp masking (UM) analyses. We find that the estimates from the SF, ACF, and UM methods yield strengths of 103 $\pm$ 46 $μ$G, 136 $\pm$ 69 $μ$G, and 213 $\pm$ 115 $μ$G, respectively. Our calculations suggest that the Ophiuchus C core is near magnetically critical or slightly magnetically supercritical (i.e. unstable to collapse). The total magnetic energy calculated from the SF method is comparable to the turbulent energy in Ophiuchus C, while the ACF method and the UM method only set upper limits for the total magnetic energy because of large uncertainties.

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arXiv2019

The role of magnetic field in molecular cloud formation and evolution

We review the role that magnetic field may have on the formation and evolution of molecular clouds. After a brief presentation and main assumptions leading to ideal MHD equations, their most important correction, namely the ion-neutral drift is described. The nature of the multi-phase interstellar medium (ISM) and the thermal processes that allows this gas to become denser are presented. Then we discuss our current knowledge of compressible magnetized turbulence, thought to play a fundamental role in the ISM. We also describe what is known regarding the correlation between the magnetic and the density fields. Then the influence that magnetic field may have on the interstellar filaments and the molecular clouds is discussed, notably the role it may have on the prestellar dense cores as well as regarding the formation of stellar clusters. Finally we briefly review its possible effects on the formation of molecular clouds themselves. We argue that given the magnetic intensities that have been measured, it is likely that magnetic field is i) responsible of reducing the star formation rate in dense molecular cloud gas by a factor of a few, ii) strongly shaping the interstellar gas by generating a lot of filaments and reducing the numbers of clumps, cores and stars, although its exact influence remains to be better understood. % by a factor on the order of at least 2. Moreover at small scales, magnetic braking is likely a dominant process that strongly modifies the outcome of the star formation process. Finally, we stress that by inducing the formation of more massive stars, magnetic field could possibly enhance the impact of stellar feedback.

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arXiv2018

The Exchange of Mass and Angular Momentum in the Impact Event of Ice Giant Planets: Implications for the origin of Uranus

Uranus has a tilted rotation axis, which is supposed to be caused by a giant impact. In general, an impact event also changes the internal compositional distribution and drives mass ejection from the planet, which may provide the origin of satellites. Previous studies of the impact simulation of Uranus investigated the resultant angular momentum and the ejected mass distribution. However, the effect of changing the initial condition of the thermal and compositional structure is not studied. In this paper, we perform hydrodynamics simulations for the impact events of Uranus-size ice giants composed of a water core surrounded by a hydrogen envelope using two variant methods of the smoothed particle hydrodynamics. We find that the higher entropy target loses its envelope more efficiently than the low entropy target. However, the higher entropy target gains more angular momentum than the lower entropy target since the higher entropy target has more expanded envelope. We discuss the efficiency of angular momentum transport and the amount of the ejected mass and find a simple analytical model to roughly reproduce the outcomes of numerical simulations. We suggest the range of possible initial conditions for the giant impact on proto-Uranus that reproduces the present rotation tilt of Uranus and sufficiently provides the total angular momentum of the satellite system that can be created from the fragments from the giant impact.

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arXiv2018

Radiation Hydrodynamics Simulations of Spherical Protostellar Collapse for Very Low Mass Objects

We perform radiation hydrodynamical simulations of protostellar collapse in spherical symmetry, with a special focus on very low-mass objects, i.e. brown dwarfs and sub-brown dwarfs. The inclusion of a realistic equation of state that includes the effect of hydrogen dissociation allows for a modeling of the complete process from the beginning of the collapse until the formation of the protostar. We solve the frequency-dependent radiative transfer equation without any diffusion approximation, using realistic dust and gas opacities. Our results show that the properties of the protostar are essentially independent of the initial conditions, which had previously only been confirmed for higher mass ranges. For very low mass initial conditions, however, we find that the first core phase of the collapse shows some significant differences in the time evolution, with the first core lifetime increasing dramatically because of the reduced accretion rate from the surrounding envelope. We consider the observational implications of this. We also investigate the opposite case of a collapse without any first core phase, which may occur for very unstable initial conditions. In the appendix, we describe a severe numerical problem that causes an unphysical expansion after the formation of the protostar, which may affect other attempts at similar calculations of self-gravitational collapse. We explain the origin of the unphysical behavior and present a solution that can be used in similar investigations.

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arXiv2018

ALMA Reveals a Misaligned Inner Gas Disk inside the Large Cavity of a Transitional Disk

Pairs of azimuthal intensity decrements at near symmetric locations have been seen in a number of protoplanetary disks. They are most commonly interpreted as the two shadows cast by a highly misaligned inner disk. Direct evidence of such an inner disk, however, remain largely illusive, except in rare cases. In 2012, a pair of such shadows were discovered in scattered light observations of the near face-on disk around 2MASS J16042165-2130284, a transitional object with a cavity $\sim$60 AU in radius. The star itself is a `dipper', with quasi-periodic dimming events on its light curve, commonly hypothesized as caused by extinctions by transiting dusty structures in the inner disk. Here, we report the detection of a gas disk inside the cavity using ALMA observations with $\sim0$\farcs2 angular resolution. A twisted butterfly pattern is found in the moment 1 map of CO (3-2) emission line towards the center, which is the key signature of a high misalignment between the inner and outer disks. In addition, the counterparts of the shadows are seen in both dust continuum emission and gas emission maps, consistent with these regions being cooler than their surroundings. Our findings strongly support the hypothesized misaligned-inner-disk origin of the shadows in the J1604-2130 disk. Finally, the inclination of inner disk would be close to -45 $^{\circ}$ in contrast with 45 $^{\circ}$; it is possible that its internal asymmetric structures cause the variations on the light curve of the host star.

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arXiv2018

Toward Understanding the Origin of Asteroid Geometries: Variety in Shapes Produced by Equal-Mass Impacts

More than a half of asteroids in the main belt have irregular shapes with the ratios of the minor to major axis lengths less than 0.6. One of the mechanisms to create such shapes is collisions between asteroids. The relationship between shapes of collisional outcomes and impact conditions such as impact velocities may provide information on the collisional environments and its evolutionary stages when those asteroids are created. In this study, we perform numerical simulations of collisional destruction of asteroids with radii 50 km and subsequent gravitational reaccumulation using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics for elastic dynamics with self-gravity, a model of fracture of rock, and a model of friction of completely damaged rock. We systematically vary the impact velocity from 50 m/s to 400 m/s and the impact angle from 5 degrees to 45 degrees. We investigate shapes of the largest remnants resulting from collisional simulations. As a result, various shapes (bilobed, spherical, flat, elongated, and hemispherical shapes) are formed through equal-mass and low-velocity (50 - 400 m/s) impacts. We clarify a range of the impact angle and velocity to form each shape. Our results indicate that irregular shapes, especially flat shapes, of asteroids with diameters larger than 80 km are likely to be formed through similar-mass and low-velocity impacts, which are likely to occur in the primordial environment prior to the formation of Jupiter.

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arXiv2018

Properties of an accretion disc with a power-law stress-pressure relationship

Recent numerical simulations of magnetized accretion discs show that the radial-azimuthal component of the stress tensor due to the magnetorotational instability (MRI) is well represented by a power-law function of the gas pressure rather than a linear relation which has been used in most of the accretion disc studies. The exponent of this power-law function which depends on the net flux of the imposed magnetic field is reported in the range between zero and unity. However, the physical consequences of this power-law stress-pressure relation within the framework of the standard disc model have not been explored so far. In this study, the structure of an accretion disc with a power-law stress-pressure relation is studied using analytical solutions in the steady-state and time-dependent cases. The derived solutions are applicable to different accreting systems, and as an illustrative example, we explore structure of protoplanetary discs using these solutions. We show that the slopes of the radial surface density and temperature distributions become steeper with decreasing the stress exponent. However, if the disc opacity is dominated by icy grains and value of the stress exponent is less than about $0.5$, the surface density and temperature profiles become so steep that make them unreliable. We also obtain analytical solutions for the protoplanetary discs which are irradiated by the host star. Using these solutions, we find that the effect of the irradiation becomes more significant with decreasing the stress exponent.

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arXiv2018

Molecular filament formation and filament-cloud interaction: Hints from Nobeyama 45m telescope observations

We present Nobeyama 45m telescope C18O, 13CO, and 12CO(1-0) mapping observations towards an interstellar filament in the Taurus molecular cloud. We investigate the gas velocity structure along the filament and in its surrounding parent cloud. The filament is detected in the optically thin C18O emission as a single velocity component, ~1pc long, ~0.06pc wide structure. The C18O emission traces dust column densities larger than ~5x10^21 cm-2. The line-of-sight (LOS) velocity fluctuates along the filament crest with an average amplitude of ~0.2 km/s. The 13CO and 12CO integrated intensity maps show spatially extended emission around the elongated filament. We identify three extended structures with LOS velocities redshifted and blueshifted with respect to the average velocity of the filament identified in C18O. Based on combined analyses of velocity integrated channel maps and intensity variations of the optically thick 12CO spectra on and off the filament, we propose a 3-dimensional structure of the cloud surrounding the filament. We further suggest a multi-interaction scenario where sheet-like extended structures interact, in space and time, with the filament and are responsible for its compression and/or disruption, playing an important role in the star formation history of the filament. We also identify, towards the same field, a very faint filament showing a velocity field compatible with the filament formation process proposed by Inoue et al. (2017), where a filament is formed due to convergence of a flow of matter generated by the bending of the ambient magnetic field structure induced by an interstellar shock compression.

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arXiv2018

Warm CO gas generated by possible turbulent shocks in a low-mass star-forming dense core in Taurus

We report ALMA Cycle 3 observations in CO isotopes toward a dense core, MC27/L1521F in Taurus, which is considered to be at an early stage of multiple star formation in a turbulent environment. Although most of the high-density parts of this core are considered to be as cold as $\sim$10 K, high-angular resolution ($\sim$20 au) observations in $^{12}$CO ($J$ = 3--2) revealed complex warm ($>$15--60 K) filamentary/clumpy structures with the sizes from a few tens of au to $\sim$1,000 au. The interferometric observations of $^{13}$CO and C$^{18}$O show that the densest part with arc-like morphologies associated with the previously identified protostar and condensations are slightly redshifted from the systemic velocity of the core. We suggest that the warm CO clouds may be consequences of shock heating induced by interactions among the different density/velocity components that originated from the turbulent motions in the core. However, such a small-scale and fast turbulent motion does not correspond to a simple extension of the line-width-size relation (i.e., Larson'{}s law), and thus the actual origin remains to be studied. The high-angular resolution CO observations are expected to be essential in detecting small-scale turbulent motions in dense cores and to investigate protostar formation therein.

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arXiv2018

Magnetic fields towards Ophiuchus-B derived from SCUBA-2 polarization measurements

We present the results of dust emission polarization measurements of Ophiuchus-B (Oph-B) carried out using the Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array 2 (SCUBA-2) camera with its associated polarimeter (POL-2) on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii. This work is part of the B-fields In Star-forming Region Observations (BISTRO) survey initiated to understand the role of magnetic fields in star formation for nearby star-forming molecular clouds. We present a first look at the geometry and strength of magnetic fields in Oph-B. The field geometry is traced over $\sim$0.2 pc, with clear detection of both of the sub-clumps of Oph-B. The field pattern appears significantly disordered in sub-clump Oph-B1. The field geometry in Oph-B2 is more ordered, with a tendency to be along the major axis of the clump, parallel to the filamentary structure within which it lies. The degree of polarization decreases systematically towards the dense core material in the two sub-clumps. The field lines in the lower density material along the periphery are smoothly joined to the large scale magnetic fields probed by NIR polarization observations. We estimated a magnetic field strength of 630$\pm$410 $μ$G in the Oph-B2 sub-clump using a Davis-Chandeasekhar-Fermi analysis. With this magnetic field strength, we find a mass-to-flux ratio $λ$= 1.6$\pm$1.1, which suggests that the Oph-B2 clump is slightly magnetically supercritical.

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arXiv2018

Star Formation Induced by Cloud-Cloud Collisions and Galactic Giant Molecular Cloud Evolution

Recent radio observations towards nearby galaxies started to map the whole disk and to identify giant molecular clouds (GMCs) even in the regions between galactic spiral structures. Observed variations of GMC mass functions in different galactic environment indicates that massive GMCs preferentially reside along galactic spiral structures whereas inter-arm regions have many small GMCs. Based on the phase transition dynamics from magnetized warm neutral medium to molecular clouds, Kobayashi et al. 2017 proposes a semi-analytical evolutionary description for GMC mass functions including cloud-cloud collision (CCC) process. Their results show that CCC is less dominant in shaping the mass function of GMCs compared with the accretion of dense HI gas driven by the propagation of supersonic shock waves. However, their formulation does not take into account the possible enhancement of star formation by CCC. Radio observations within the Milky Way indicate the importance of CCC for the formation of star clusters and massive stars. In this article, we reformulate the time evolution equation largely modified from Kobayashi et al. 2017 so that we additionally compute star formation subsequently taking place in CCC clouds. Our results suggest that, although CCC events between smaller clouds outnumber the ones between massive GMCs, CCC-driven star formation is mostly driven by massive GMCs > 10^5.5 Msun (where Msun is the solar mass). The resultant cumulative CCC-driven star formation may amount to a few 10 percent of the total star formation in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies.

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