The interaction of supernova shockfronts and nearby interstellar clouds
Abstract
A two-dimensional hydrodynamical code is used to numerically investigate whether a nearby supernova can trigger star formation in a dense interstellar cloud. The initial parameters of the models are adjusted to represent average properties of massive interstellar clouds, the intercloud medium, and very young SN remnants. It is shown that SN explosions can trigger cloud collapse on timescales of the order of a few million years, and that the collapse itself and the fragmentation into solar mass size protostars will take another ten million years. The clouds must not be too far away from the Jeans critical mass and the cooling processes must be efficient. If the cooling is not very efficient, the nearby SN will only evaporate the clouds. The results support the notion that isotopic anomalies found in some classes of meteorites are due to materials injected into the protostellar cloud by a nearby SN.
- Publication:
-
Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Pub Date:
- December 1983
- Bibcode:
- 1983A&A...128..411K
- Keywords:
-
- Gravitational Collapse;
- Isotopic Enrichment;
- Molecular Clouds;
- Shock Wave Propagation;
- Stellar Evolution;
- Supernovae;
- Hydrodynamics;
- Jeans Theory;
- Meteoritic Composition;
- Plasma Cooling;
- Astrophysics