2022/12/02 by Lewis, Sean C., McMillan, Stephen L. W., Mac Low, Mordecai-Mark +8 · 4 citations
#Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) #FOS: Physical sciences #Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2212.01465
Feedback from massive stars plays an important role in the formation of star clusters. Whether a very massive star is born early or late in the cluster formation timeline has profound implications for the star cluster formation and assembly processes. We carry out a controlled experiment to characterize the effects of early-forming massive stars on star cluster formation. We use the star formation software suite Torch, combining self-gravitating magnetohydrodynamics, ray-tracing radiative transfer, N-body dynamics, and stellar feedback to model four initially identical 104 M_\odot giant molecular clouds with a Gaussian density profile peaking at 521.5 cm-3. Using the Torch software suite through the AMUSE framework we modify three of the models to ensure that the first star that forms is very massive (50, 70, 100 M_\odot). Early-forming massive stars disrupt the natal gas structure, resulting in fast evacuation of the gas from the star forming region. The star formation rate is suppressed, reducing the total mass of stars formed. Our fiducial control model without an early massive star has a larger star formation rate and total efficiency by up to a factor of three and a higher average star formation efficiency per free-fall time by up to a factor of seven. Early-forming massive stars promote the buildup of spatially separate and gravitationally unbound subclusters, while the control model forms a single massive cluster.