arXiv subjects

Stefan Heigl

Publications and source records attributed to Stefan Heigl.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Bonnor-Ebert sphere collapse in filamentary structures

Star formation within filaments may arise due to the growth of cores according to linear perturbation theory. This implies a minimum core separation, as shorter modes would not be able to grow. While many observations agree with core separations by theoretical predictions, some observations also show star forming cores which lie closer together than the minimum wavelength given by perturbation theory. We explore whether non-linear effects during the late stages of core growth can explain the discrepancy between theory and observations. We perform three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations with the Ramses code to follow the evolution of initial perturbations within filaments and compare the measured growth rates to expectations from theoretical models. Non-linear evolution sets in as soon as the core mass reaches a value where the gravitational potential is not any longer dominated by the cylindrical potential of the filament but by the spherical potential of the Bonnor-Ebert sphere. Consequently, core collapse is not triggered by the loss of hydrostatic stability of the filament but by the loss of hydrostatic stability of the Bonnor-Ebert sphere. As the core is embedded in the filament, the maximum core mass is given by the pressure within the filament which results in a constant line-mass threshold for core collapse. As core collapse is triggered as soon as overdensities reach a certain line-mass, cores which form as large line-mass perturbations during filament formation can go into direct collapse even if their separation is closer than predicted by linear perturbation theory. Therefore, our result can explain the discrepancy between theory and observations.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2024

Protostellar disk accretion in turbulent filaments

Recent observations of protostellar cores suggest that most of the material in the protostellar phase is accreted along streamers. Streamers in this context are defined as velocity coherent funnels of denser material potentially connecting the large scale environment to the small scales of the forming accretion disk. Using simulations which simultaneously resolve the driving of turbulence on the filament scale as well as the collapse of the core down to protostellar disk scales, we aim to understand the effect of the turbulent velocity field on the formation of overdensities in the accretion flow. We perform a three-dimensional numerical study on a core collapse within a turbulent filament using the RAMSES code and analyse the properties of overdensities in the accretion flow. We find that overdensities are formed naturally by the initial turbulent velocity field inherited from the filament and subsequent gravitational collimation. This leads to streams which are not really filamentary but show a sheet-like morphology. Moreover, they have the same radial infall velocities as the low density material. As a main consequence of the turbulent initial condition, the mass accretion onto the disk does not follow the predictions for solid body rotation. Instead, most of the mass is funneled by the overdensities to intermediate disk radii.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Filament fragmentation: Density gradients suppress end dominated collapse

The onset of star formation is set by the collapse of filaments in the interstellar medium. From a theoretical point of view, an isolated cylindrical filament forms cores via the edge effect. Due to the self-gravity of a filament, the strong increase in acceleration at both ends leads to a pile-up of matter which collapses into cores. However, this effect is rarely observed. Most theoretical models consider a sharp density cut-off at the edge of the filament, whereas a smoother transition is more realistic and would also decrease the acceleration at the ends of the filament. We show that the edge effect can be significantly slowed down by a density gradient, although not completely avoided. However, this allows perturbations inside the filament to grow faster than the edge. We determine the critical density gradient for which the timescales are equal and find it to be of the order of several times the filament radius. Hence, the density gradient at the ends of a filament is an essential parameter for fragmentation and the low rate of observed cases of the edge effect could be naturally explained by shallow gradients.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Filament collapse: a two phase process

Using numerical simulations, we investigate the gravitational evolution of filamentary molecular cloud structures and their condensation into dense protostellar cores. One possible process is the so called 'edge effect', the pile-up of matter at the end of the filament due to self-gravity. This effect is predicted by theory but only rarely observed. To get a better understanding of the underlying processes we used a simple analytic approach to describe the collapse and the corresponding collapse time. We identify a model of two distinct phases: The first phase is free fall dominated, due to the self-gravity of the filament. In the second phase, after the turning point, the collapse is balanced by the ram pressure, produced by the inside material of the filament, which leads to a constant collapse velocity. This approach reproduces the established collapse time of uniform density filaments and agrees well with our hydrodynamic simulations. In addition, we investigate the influence of different radial density profiles on the collapse. We find that the deviations compared to the uniform filament are less than 10%. Therefore, the analytic collapse model of the uniform density filament is an excellent general approach.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2023

Taking off the edge -- simultaneous filament and end core formation

Simulations of idealised star-forming filaments of finite length typically show core growth which is dominated by two cores forming at its respective end. The end cores form due to a strong increasing acceleration at the filament ends which leads to a sweep-up of material during the filament collapse along its axis. As this growth mode is typically faster than any other core formation mode in a filament, the end cores usually dominate in mass and density compared to other cores forming inside a filament. However, observations of star-forming filaments do not show this prevalence of cores at the filament ends. We explore a possible mechanism to slow the growth of the end cores using numerical simulations of simultaneous filament and embedded core formation, in our case a radially accreting filament forming in a finite converging flow. While such a setup still leads to end cores, they soon begin to move inwards and a density gradient is formed outside of the cores by the continued accumulation of material. As a result, the outermost cores are not longer located at the exact ends of the filament and the density gradient softens the inward gravitational acceleration of the cores. Therefore, the two end cores do not grow as fast as expected and thus do not dominate over other core formation modes in the filament.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2021

Merging Filaments I: A race against collapse

The interstellar medium is characterised by an intricate filamentary network which exhibits complex structures. These show a variety of different shapes (e.g. junctions, rings, etc.) deviating strongly from the usually assumed cylindrical shape. A possible formation mechanism are filament mergers which we analyse in this study. Indeed, the proximity of filaments in networks suggests mergers to be rather likely. As the merger has to be faster than the end dominated collapse of the filament along its major axis we expect three possible results: (a) The filaments collapse before a merger can happen, (b) the merged filamentary complex shows already signs of cores at the edges or (c) the filaments merge into a structure which is not end-dominated. We develop an analytic formula for the merging and core-formation timescale at the edge and validate our model via hydrodynamical simulations with the adaptive-mesh-refinement-code RAMSES. This allows us to predict the outcome of a filament merger, given different initial conditions which are the initial distance and the respective line-masses of each filament as well as their relative velocities.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2020

Accretion driven turbulence in filaments II: Effects of self-gravity

We extend our previous work on simulations with the code RAMSES on accretion driven turbulence by including self-gravity and study the effects of core formation and collapse. We show that radial accretion onto filaments drives turbulent motions which are not isotropic but radially dominated. In contrast to filaments without gravity, the velocity dispersion of self-gravitating filaments does not settle in an equilibrium. Despite showing similar amounts of driven turbulence, they continually dissipate their velocity dispersion until the onset of core formation. This difference is connected to the evolution of the radius as it determines the dissipation rate. In the non-gravitational case filament growth is not limited and its radius grows linearly with time. In contrast, there is a maximum extent in the self-gravitational case resulting in an increased dissipation rate. Furthermore, accretion driven turbulence shows a radial profile which is anti-correlated with density. This leads to a constant turbulent pressure throughout the filament. As the additional turbulent pressure does not have a radial gradient it does not contribute to the stability of filaments and does not increase the critical line-mass. However, this radial turbulence does affect the radius of a filament, adding to the extent and setting its maximum value. Moreover, the radius evolution also affects the growth timescale of cores which compared to the timescale of collapse of an accreting filament limits core formation to high line-masses.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Accretion driven turbulence in filaments I: Non-gravitational accretion

We study accretion driven turbulence for different inflow velocities in star forming filaments using the code ramses. Filaments are rarely isolated objects and their gravitational potential will lead to radially dominated accretion. In the non-gravitational case, accretion by itself can already provoke non-isotropic, radially dominated turbulent motions responsible for the complex structure and non-thermal line widths observed in filaments. We find that there is a direct linear relation between the absolute value of the total density weighted velocity dispersion and the infall velocity. The turbulent velocity dispersion in the filaments is independent of sound speed or any net flow along the filament. We show that the density weighted velocity dispersion acts as an additional pressure term supporting the filament in hydrostatic equilibrium. Comparing to observations, we find that the projected non-thermal line width variation is generally subsonic independent of inflow velocity.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2018

Morphology of prestellar cores in pressure confined filaments

Observations of prestellar cores in star-forming filaments show two distinct morphologies. While molecular line measurements often show broad cores, submillimeter continuum observations predominantly display pinched cores compared to the bulk of the filament gas. In order to explain how different morphologies arise, we use the gravitational instability model where prestellar cores form by growing density perturbations. The radial extent at each position is set by the local line-mass. We show that the ratio of core radius to filament radius is determined by the initial line-mass of the filament. Additionally, the core morphology is independent of perturbation length scale and inclination, which makes it an ideal diagnostic for observations. Filaments with a line-mass of less than half its critical value should form broad cores, whereas filaments with more than half its critical line-mass value should form pinched cores. For filaments embedded in a constant background pressure, the dominant perturbation growth times significantly differ for low and high line-mass filaments. Therefore, we predict that only one population of cores is present if all filaments within a region begin with similar initial perturbations.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2017

Non-linear dense core formation in the dark cloud L1517

We present a solution for the observed core fragmentation of filaments in the Taurus L1517 dark cloud which previously could not be explained (Hacar et. al 2011). Core fragmentation is a vital step for the formation of stars. Observations suggest a connection to the filamentary structure of the cloud gas but it remains unclear which process is responsible. We show that the gravitational instability process of an isothermal cylinder can account for the exhibited fragmentation under the assumption that the perturbation grows on the dominant wavelength. We use numerical simulations with the code RAMSES, estimate observed column densities and line-of-sight velocities and compare them to the observations. A critical factor for the observed fragmentation is that cores grow by redistributing mass within the filament and thus the density between the cores decreases over the fragmentation process. This often leads to wrong dominant wavelength estimates as it is strongly dependent on the initial central density. We argue that non-linear effects also play an important role on the evolution of the fragmentation. Once the density perturbation grows above the critical line-mass, non-linearity leads to an enhancement of the central core density in comparison to the analytical prediction. Choosing the correct initial conditions with perturbation strengths of around 20\%, leads to inclination corrected line-of-sight velocities and central core densities within the observational measurement error in a realistic evolution time.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Oscillating Filaments: I - Oscillation and Geometrical Fragmentation

We study the stability of filaments in equilibrium between gravity and internal as well as external pressure using the grid based AMR-code RAMSES. A homogeneous, straight cylinder below a critical line mass is marginally stable. However, if the cylinder is bent, e.g. with a slight sinusoidal perturbation, an otherwise stable configuration starts to oscillate, is triggered into fragmentation and collapses. This previously unstudied behavior allows a filament to fragment at any given scale, as long as it has slight bends. We call this process `geometrical fragmentation'. In our realization the spacing between the cores matches the wavelength of the sinusoidal perturbation, whereas up to now, filaments were thought to be only fragmenting on the characteristical scale set by the mass-to-line ratio. Using first principles, we derive the oscillation period as well as the collapse timescale analytically. To enable a direct comparison with observations, we study the line-of-sight velocity for different inclinations. We show that the overall oscillation pattern can hide the infall signature of cores.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Prestellar core modeling in the presence of a filament - The dense heart of L1689B

Short version: We apply a new synergetic radiative transfer method: the derived 1D density profiles are both consistent with a cut through the Herschel PACS/SPIRE and JCMT SCUBA-2 continuum maps of L1689B and with a derived local interstellar radiation field. Choosing an appropriate cut along the filament major axis, we minimize the impact of the filament emission on the modeling. For the bulk of the core (5000-20000 au) an isothermal sphere model with a temperature of around 10 K provides the best fits. We show that the power law index of the density profile, as well as the constant temperature can be derived directly from the radial surface brightness profiles. For the inner region (< 5000 au), we find a range of densities and temperatures that are consistent with the surface brightness profiles and the local interstellar radiation field. Based on our core models, we find that pixel-by-pixel single temperature spectral energy distribution fits are incapable of determining dense core properties. We conclude that, to derive physical core properties, it is important to avoid an azimuthal average of core and filament. Correspondingly, derived core masses are too high since they include some mass of the filament, and might introduce errors when determining core mass functions. The forward radiative transfer methods also avoids the loss of information owing to smearing of all maps to the coarsest spatial resolution. We find the central core region to be colder and denser than estimated in recent inverse radiative transfer modeling, possibly indicating the start of star formation in L1689B.

astro-ph.GA↗