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Bubbles driven by energy and mass injection from small scales are ubiquitous in astrophysical fluid systems and essential to feedback across multiple scales. In particular, O stars in young clusters produce high-velocity winds that create hot bubbles in the surrounding gas. We demonstrate that the dynamical evolution of these bubbles is critically dependent upon the geometry of their interfaces with their surroundings and the nature of heat transport across these interfaces. These factors together determine the amount of energy that can be lost from the interior through cooling at the interface, which in turn determines the ability of the bubble to do work on its surroundings. We further demonstrate that the scales relevant to physical dissipation across this interface are extremely difficult to resolve in global numerical simulations of bubbles for parameter values of interest. This means the dissipation driving evolution of these bubbles in numerical simulations is often of a numerical nature. We describe the physical and numerical principles that determine the level of dissipation in these simulations; we use this, along with a fractal model for the geometry of the interfaces, to explain differences in convergence behavior between hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical simulations presented here. We additionally derive an expression for momentum as a function of bubble radius expected when the relevant dissipative scales are resolved and show that it still results in efficiently cooled solutions, as postulated in previous work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the first results from a high-resolution simulation with a focus on galactic wind driving for an isolated galaxy with a halo mass of ∼1011 M ⊙ (similar to the Large Magellanic Cloud) and a total gas mass of ∼6 × 108 M ⊙, resulting in ∼108 gas cells at ∼4 M ⊙ mass resolution. We adopt a resolved stellar feedback model with nonequilibrium cooling and heating, including photoelectric heating and photoionizing radiation, as well as supernovae, coupled to the second-order meshless finite-mass method for hydrodynamics. These features make this the largest resolved interstellar medium (ISM) galaxy model run to date. We find mean star formation rates around 0.05 M ⊙ yr−1 and evaluate typical time-averaged loading factors for mass (η M ∼ 1.0, in good agreement with recent observations) and energy (η E ∼ 0.01). The bulk of the mass of the wind is transported by the warm (T < 5 × 105 K) phase, while there is a similar amount of energy transported in the warm and the hot phases (T > 5 × 105 K). We find an average opening angle of 30° for the wind, decreasing with higher altitude above the midplane. The wind mass loading is decreasing (flat) for the warm (hot) phase as a function of the star formation surface rate density ΣSFR, while the energy loading shows inverted trends with ΣSFR, decreasing for the warm wind and increasing for the hot wind, although with very shallow slopes. These scalings are in good agreement with previous simulations of resolved wind driving in the multiphase ISM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The driving of turbulence in galaxies is deeply connected with the physics of feedback, star formation, outflows, accretion, and radial transport in disks. The velocity dispersion of gas in galaxies therefore offers a promising observational window into these processes. However, the relative importance of each of these mechanisms remains controversial. In this work we revisit the possibility that turbulence on galactic scales is driven by the direct impact of accreting gaseous material on the disk. We measure this effect in a disk-like star-forming galaxy in IllustrisTNG, using the high-resolution cosmological magnetohydrodynamical simulation TNG50. We employ Lagrangian tracer particles with a high time cadence of only a few million years to identify accretion and other events. The energies of particles are measured by stacking the events in bins of time around the event. The average effect of each event is measured by fitting explicit models for the kinetic and turbulent energies as a function of time. These measurements are corroborated by cross-correlating the turbulent energy with other time series and searching for signals of causality, i.e., asymmetries across zero time lag. We find that accretion contributes to the large-scale turbulent kinetic energy even if it does not dominate in this ∼5 × 109 M ⊙ stellar mass galaxy. Extrapolating this finding to a range of galaxy masses, we find that there are regimes where energy from direct accretion may dominate the turbulent energy budget, particularly in disk outskirts, galaxies less massive than the Milky Way, and at redshift ∼2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dividing line between galaxies that are quenched by reionization ("relics") and galaxies that survive reionization (i.e., continue forming stars) is commonly discussed in terms of a halo mass threshold. We probe this threshold in a physically more complete and accurate way than has been possible to date, using five extremely high resolution (M target = 4 M ⊙) cosmological zoom-in simulations of dwarf galaxies within the halo mass range (1–4) × 109 M ⊙. The employed LYRA simulation model features resolved interstellar medium physics and individual, resolved supernova explosions. Interestingly, two out of five of the simulated dwarf galaxies lie close to the threshold mass but are neither full reionization relics nor full reionization survivors. These galaxies initially quench at the time of reionization but merely remain quiescent for ∼500 Myr. At z ∼ 5 they recommence star formation in a synchronous way and remain star-forming until the present day. The parallel timing indicates consistent sound-crossing and cooling times between the halos. While the star formation histories we find are diverse, we show that they are directly related to the ability of a given halo to retain and cool gas. Whereas the latter is most strongly dependent on the mass (or virial temperature) of the host halo at the time of reionization, it also depends on its growth history, the UV background (and its decrease at late times), and the amount of metals retained within the halo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Physical and chemical properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) at subgalactic (∼kiloparsec) scales play an indispensable role in controlling the ability of gas to form stars. In this paper, we use the TNG50 cosmological simulation to explore the physical parameter space of eight resolved ISM properties in star-forming regions to constrain the areas of this hyperspace where most star-forming environments exist. We deconstruct our simulated galaxies spanning a wide range of mass (M⋆ = 107–1011M⊙) and redshift (0 ≤ z ≤ 3) into kiloparsec-sized regions and statistically analyze the gas/stellar surface densities, gas metallicity, vertical stellar velocity dispersion, epicyclic frequency, and dark-matter volumetric density representative of each region in the context of their star formation activity and environment (radial galactocentric location). By examining the star formation rate (SFR) weighted distributions of these properties, we show that stars primarily form in two distinct environmental regimes, which are brought about by an underlying bicomponent radial SFR profile in galaxies. We examine how the relative prominence of these regimes depends on galaxy mass and cosmic time. We also compare our findings with those from integral field spectroscopy observations and find similarities as well as departures. Further, using dimensionality reduction, we characterize the aforementioned hyperspace to reveal a high degree of multicollinearity in relationships among ISM properties that drive the distribution of star formation at kiloparsec scales. Based on this, we show that a reduced 3D representation underpinned by a multivariate radius relationship is sufficient to capture most of the variance in the original 8D space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a novel analytic framework to model the steady-state structure of multiphase galactic winds comprised of a hot, volume-filling component and a cold, clumpy component. We first derive general expressions for the structure of the hot phase for arbitrary mass, momentum, and energy source terms. Next, informed by recent simulations, we parameterize the cloud–wind mass transfer rates, which are set by the competition between turbulent mixing and radiative cooling. This enables us to cast the cloud–wind interaction as a source term for the hot phase and thereby simultaneously solve for the evolution of both phases, fully accounting for their bidirectional influence. With this model, we explore the nature of galactic winds over a broad range of conditions. We find that (i) with realistic parameter choices, we naturally produce a hot, low-density wind that transports energy while entraining a significant flux of cold clouds, (ii) mixing dominates the cold cloud acceleration and decelerates the hot wind, (iii) during mixing thermalization of relative kinetic energy provides significant heating, (iv) systems with low hot phase mass loading factors and/or star formation rates can sustain higher initial cold phase mass loading factors, but the clouds are quickly shredded, and (v) systems with large hot phase mass loading factors and/or high star formation rates cannot sustain large initial cold phase mass loading factors, but the clouds tend to grow with distance from the galaxy. Our results highlight the necessity of accounting for the multiphase structure of galactic winds, both physically and observationally, and have important implications for feedback in galactic systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present cosmological hydrodynamic simulations of a quasar-mass halo (Mhalo ≈ 1012.5M⊙ at z = 2) that for the first time resolve gas transport down to the inner 0.1 pc surrounding the central massive black hole. We model a multiphase interstellar medium including stellar feedback by supernovae, stellar winds, and radiation, and a hyper-Lagrangian refinement technique increasing the resolution dynamically approaching the black hole. We do not include black hole feedback. We show that the subpc inflow rate (1) can reach ∼6 M⊙ yr−1 roughly in steady state during the epoch of peak nuclear gas density (z ∼ 2), sufficient to power a luminous quasar, (2) is highly time variable in the pre-quasar phase, spanning 0.001–10 M⊙ yr−1 on Myr timescales, and (3) is limited to short (∼2 Myr) active phases (0.01–0.1 M⊙ yr−1) followed by longer periods of inactivity at lower nuclear gas density and late times (z ∼ 1), owing to the formation of a hot central cavity. Inflowing gas is primarily cool, rotational support dominates over turbulence and thermal pressure, and star formation can consume as much gas as provided by inflows across 1 pc–10 kpc. Gravitational torques from multiscale stellar non-axisymmetries dominate angular momentum transport over gas self-torquing and pressure gradients, with accretion weakly dependent on black hole mass. Subpc inflow rates correlate with nuclear (but decouple from global) star formation and can exceed the Eddington rate by ×10. The black hole can move ∼10 pc from the galaxy center on ∼0.1 Myr. Accreting gas forms pc-scale, rotationally supported, obscuring structures often misaligned with the galaxy-scale disk. These simulations open a new avenue to investigate black hole–galaxy coevolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A critical dark matter halo mass (Mcrit) for Population III stars can be defined as the typical minimum halo mass that hosts sufficient cold-dense gas required for the formation of the first stars. The presence of Lyman–Werner (UV) radiation, which can dissociate molecular hydrogen, and the baryon-dark matter streaming velocity both delay the formation of Population III stars by increasing Mcrit. In this work, we constrain Mcrit as a function of Lyman–Werner flux (including self-shielding), baryon-dark matter streaming, and redshift using cosmological simulations with a large sample of halos utilizing the adaptive mesh refinement code enzo. We provide a fit for Mcrit as a function of these quantities, which we expect to be particularly useful for semi-analytical models of early galaxy formation. In addition, we find (i) the measured redshift dependence of Mcrit in the absence of radiation or streaming is (1 + z)−1.58, consistent with a constant virial temperature; (ii) increasing the UV background increases Mcrit while steepening the redshift dependence, up to (1 + z)−5.7; (iii) baryon-dark matter streaming boosts Mcrit but flattens the dependence on redshift; (iv) the combination of the two effects is not simply multiplicative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ram pressure stripping can remove gas from satellite galaxies in clusters via a direct interaction between the intracluster medium (ICM) and the interstellar medium. This interaction is generally thought of as a contact force per area; however, we point out that these gases must interact in a hydrodynamic fashion and argue that this will lead to the mixing of the galactic gas with the ICM wind. We develop an analytic framework for how mixing is related to the acceleration of stripped gas from a satellite galaxy. We then test this model using three "wind-tunnel" simulations of Milky Way–like galaxies interacting with a moving ICM and find excellent agreement with predictions using the analytic framework. Focusing on the dense clumps in the stripped tails, we find that they are nearly uniformly mixed with the ICM, indicating that all gas in the tail mixes with the surroundings and dense clumps are not separate entities to be modeled differently than diffuse gas. We find that while mixing drives the acceleration of stripped gas, the density and velocity of the surrounding wind will determine whether the mixing results in the heating of stripped gas into the ICM or the cooling of the ICM into dense clouds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Semianalytic models (SAMs) are a promising means of tracking the physical processes associated with galaxy formation, but many of their approximations have not been rigorously tested. As part of the Simulating Multiscale Astrophysics to Understand Galaxies project, we compare predictions from the FIRE-2 hydrodynamical "zoom-in" simulations to those from the Santa Cruz SAM run on the same halo merger trees, with an emphasis on the global mass flow cycle. Our study includes 13 halos spanning low-mass dwarfs (Mvir ∼ 1010M⊙ at z = 0), intermediate-mass dwarfs (Mvir ∼ 1011M⊙), and Milky Way–mass galaxies (Mvir ∼ 1012M⊙). The SAM and FIRE-2 predictions agree relatively well with each other in terms of stellar and interstellar medium mass but differ dramatically on circumgalactic medium mass (the SAM is lower than FIRE-2 by ∼3 orders of magnitude for dwarfs). Strikingly, the SAM predicts higher gas accretion rates for dwarfs compared to FIRE-2 by factors of ∼10–100, and this is compensated for with higher mass outflow rates in the SAM. We argue that the most severe model discrepancies are caused by the lack of preventative stellar feedback and the assumptions for halo gas cooling and recycling in the SAM. As a first step toward resolving these model tensions, we present a simple yet promising new preventative stellar feedback model in which the energy carried by supernova-driven winds is allowed to heat some fraction of gas outside of halos to at least the virial temperature such that accretion is suppressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) at low redshift in a range of simulated Milky Way mass halos. The sample is comprised of seven idealized simulations, an adaptive mesh refinement cosmological zoom-in simulation, and two groups of 50 halos with star-forming or quiescent galaxies taken from the TNG100 simulation. The simulations have very different setups, resolution, and feedback models, but are analyzed in a uniform manner. By comparing median radial profiles and mass distributions of CGM properties, we isolate key similarities and differences. In doing so, we advance the efforts of the Simulating Multiscale Astrophysics to Understand Galaxies project that aims to understand the inherently multiscale galaxy formation process. In the cosmological simulations, the CGM exhibits nearly flat temperature distributions, and broad pressure and radial velocity distributions. In the idealized simulations, similar distributions are found in the inner CGM () when strong galactic feedback models are employed, but the outer CGM () has a much less prominent cold phase, and narrower pressure and velocity distributions even in models with strong feedback. This comparative analysis demonstrates the dominant role feedback plays in shaping the inner CGM and the increased importance of cosmological effects, such as nonspherical accretion and satellite galaxies, in the outer CGM. Furthermore, our findings highlight that, while cosmological simulations are required to capture the multiphase structure of the CGM at large radii, idealized simulations provide a robust framework to study how galactic feedback interacts with the inner CGM, and thereby provide a reliable avenue to constrain feedback prescriptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large-scale outflows in star-forming galaxies are observed to be ubiquitous and are a key aspect of theoretical modeling of galactic evolution, the focus of the Simulating Multiscale Astrophysics to Understand Galaxies (SMAUG) project. Gas blown out from galactic disks, similar to gas within galaxies, consists of multiple phases with large contrasts of density, temperature, and other properties. To study multiphase outflows as emergent phenomena, we run a suite of rougly parsec-resolution local galactic disk simulations using the TIGRESS framework. Explicit modeling of the interstellar medium (ISM), including star formation and self-consistent radiative heating plus supernova feedback, regulates ISM properties and drives the outflow. We investigate the scaling of outflow mass, momentum, energy, and metal loading factors with galactic disk properties, including star formation rate (SFR) surface density (ΣSFR ∼ 10−4 − 1 M⊙ kpc−2 yr−1), gas surface density (), and total midplane pressure (or weight;). The main components of outflowing gas are mass-delivering cool gas (T ∼ 104 K) and energy/metal-delivering hot gas (T ≳ 106 K). Cool mass outflow rates measured at outflow launch points (one or two scale heights) are 1–100 times the SFR (decreasing with ΣSFR), although in massive galaxies most mass falls back owing to insufficient outflow velocity. The hot galactic outflow carries mass comparable to 10% of the SFR, together with 10%–20% of the energy and 30%–60% of the metal mass injected by SN feedback. Importantly, our analysis demonstrates that in any physically motivated cosmological wind model it is crucial to include at least two distinct thermal wind components. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Star formation in the universe's most massive galaxies proceeds furiously early in time but then nearly ceases. Plenty of hot gas remains available but does not cool and condense into star-forming clouds. Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) release enough energy to inhibit cooling of the hot gas, but energetic arguments alone do not explain why quenching of star formation is most effective in high-mass galaxies. In fact, optical observations show that quenching is more closely related to a galaxy's central stellar velocity dispersion (σv) than to any other characteristic. Here we show that high σv is critical to quenching because a deep central potential well maximizes the efficacy of AGN feedback. In order to remain quenched, a galaxy must continually sweep out the gas ejected from its aging stars. Supernova heating can accomplish this task as long as the AGN sufficiently reduces the gas pressure of the surrounding circumgalactic medium (CGM). We find that CGM pressure acts as the control knob on a valve that regulates AGN feedback and suggest that feedback power self-adjusts so that it suffices to lift the CGM out of the galaxy's potential well. Supernova heating then drives a galactic outflow that remains homogeneous if. The AGN feedback can effectively quench galaxies with a comparable velocity dispersion, but feedback in galaxies with a much lower velocity dispersion tends to result in convective circulation and accumulation of multiphase gas within the galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) provide unique and important feedback in quiescent galaxies, but their impact has been underappreciated. In this paper, we analyze a series of high-resolution simulations to examine the energetics and turbulence of the medium under SNe Ia. We find that when SN remnants are resolved, their effects differ distinctly from a volumetric heating term, as is commonly assumed in unresolved simulations. First, the net heating is significantly higher than expected, by 30 ± 10% per cooling time. This is because a large fraction of the medium is pushed into lower densities, which cool inefficiently. Second, the medium is turbulent; the root-mean-squared (rms) velocity of the gas to 20–50 km s−1 on a driving scale of tens of parsecs. The velocity field of the medium is dominated by compressional modes, which are larger than the solenoidal components by a factor of 3–7. Third, the hot gas has a very broad density distribution. The ratio between the density fluctuations and the rms Mach number, parameterized as b, is 2–20. This is in contrast to previous simulations of turbulent media, which have found b ≲ 1. The difference is mainly caused by the localized heating of SNe Ia, which creates a large density contrast. Last, the typical length scale of a density fluctuation grows with time, forming increasingly larger bubbles and filamentary ridges. These underlying density fluctuations need to be included when X-ray observations are interpreted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a new semianalytic model of the formation of the first stars. Our method takes dark matter halo merger trees (including three-dimensional spatial information) from cosmological N-body simulations as input and applies analytic prescriptions to compute both the Population III and metal-enriched star formation histories. We have developed a novel method to accurately compute the major feedback processes affecting Population III star formation: H2 photodissociation from Lyman–Werner (LW) radiation, suppression of star formation due to inhomogeneous reionization, and metal enrichment via supernova winds. Our method utilizes a grid-based approach relying on fast Fourier transforms to rapidly track the LW intensity, ionization fraction, and metallicity in three dimensions throughout the simulation box. We present simulations for a wide range of astrophysical model parameters from z ≈ 30 to 6. Initially long-range LW feedback and local metal enrichment and reionization feedback dominate. However, for z ≲ 15 we find that the star formation rate density (SFRD) of Population III stars is impacted by the combination of external metal enrichment (metals from one halo polluting other pristine halos) and inhomogeneous reionization. We find that the interplay of these processes is particularly important for the Population III SFRD at z ≲ 10. Reionization feedback delays star formation long enough for metal bubbles to reach halos that would otherwise form Population III stars. Including these effects can lead to more than an order-of-magnitude decrease in the Population III SFRD at z = 6 compared to LW feedback alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present an analysis of the angular momentum content of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) using TNG100, one of the flagship runs of the IllustrisTNG project. We focus on Milky Way–mass halos (∼1012M⊙) at z = 0 but also analyze other masses and redshifts up to z = 5. We find that the CGM angular momentum properties are strongly correlated with the stellar angular momentum of the corresponding galaxy: the CGM surrounding high-angular momentum galaxies has a systematically higher angular momentum and is better aligned to the rotational axis of the galaxy itself than the CGM surrounding low-angular momentum galaxies. Both the hot and cold phases of the CGM show this dichotomy, though it is stronger for colder gas. The CGM of high-angular momentum galaxies is characterized by a large wedge of cold gas with rotational velocities at least ∼1/2 of the halo's virial velocity, extending out to ∼1/2 of the virial radius, and by biconical polar regions dominated by radial velocities suggestive of galactic fountains; both of these features are absent from the CGM of low-angular momentum galaxies. These conclusions are general to halo masses ≲1012M⊙ and for z ≲ 2, but they do not apply for more massive halos or at the highest redshift studied. By comparing simulations run with alterations to the fiducial feedback model, we identify the better alignment of the CGM to high-angular momentum galaxies as a feedback-independent effect and the galactic winds as a dominant influence on the CGM's angular momentum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A cool phase of the interstellar medium has been observed in many giant elliptical galaxies, but its origin remains unclear. We propose that uneven heating from Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia), together with radiative cooling, can lead to the formation of the cool phase. The basic idea is that since SNe Ia explode randomly, gas parcels that are not directly heated by SN shocks will cool, forming multiphase gas. We run a series of idealized high-resolution numerical simulations and find that cool gas develops even when the overall SN heating rate H exceeds the cooling rate C by a factor as large as 1.4. We also find that the time for multiphase gas development depends on the gas temperature. When the medium has a temperature T = 3 × 106 K, the cool phase forms within one cooling time ; however, the cool phase formation is delayed to a few times for higher temperatures. The main reason for the delay is turbulent mixing. Cool gas formed this way would naturally have a metallicity lower than that of the hot medium. For constant H/C, there is more turbulent mixing for higher-temperature gas. We note that this mechanism of producing cool gas cannot be captured in cosmological simulations, which usually fail to resolve individual SN remnants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We carry out adaptive mesh refinement cosmological simulations of Milky Way mass halos in order to investigate the formation of disk-like galaxies in a Λ-dominated cold dark matter model. We evolve a suite of five halos to z = 0 and find a gas disk formation in each; however, in agreement with previous smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations (that did not include a subgrid feedback model), the rotation curves of all halos are centrally peaked due to a massive spheroidal component. Our standard model includes radiative cooling and star formation, but no feedback. We further investigate this angular momentum problem by systematically modifying various simulation parameters including: (1) spatial resolution, ranging from 1700 to 212 pc; (2) an additional pressure component to ensure that the Jeans length is always resolved; (3) low star formation efficiency, going down to 0.1%; (4) fixed physical resolution as opposed to comoving resolution; (5) a supernova feedback model that injects thermal energy to the local cell; and (6) a subgrid feedback model which suppresses cooling in the immediate vicinity of a star formation event. Of all of these, we find that only the last (cooling suppression) has any impact on the massive spheroidal component. In particular, a simulation with cooling suppression and feedback results in a rotation curve that, while still peaked, is considerably reduced from our standard runs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We carry out high-resolution adaptive mesh refinement simulations of a cool core cluster, resolving the flow from Mpc scales down to pc scales. We do not (yet) include any active galactic nucleus (AGN) heating, focusing instead on cooling in order to understand how gas reaches the supermassive black hole at the center of the cluster. We find that, as the gas cools, the cluster develops a very flat temperature profile, undergoing a cooling catastrophe only in the central 10-100 pc of the cluster. Outside of this region, the flow is smooth, with no local cooling instabilities, and naturally produces very little low-temperature gas (below a few keV), in agreement with observations. The gas cooling in the center of the cluster rapidly forms a thin accretion disk. The amount of cold gas produced at the very center grows rapidly until a reasonable estimate of the resulting AGN heating rate (assuming even a moderate accretion efficiency) would overwhelm cooling. We argue that this naturally produces a thermostat which links the cooling of gas out to 100 kpc with the cold gas accretion in the central 100 pc, potentially closing the loop between cooling and heating. Isotropic heat conduction does not affect the result significantly, but we show that including the potential well of the brightest cluster galaxy is necessary to obtain the correct result. Also, we found that the outcome is sensitive to resolution, requiring very high mass resolution to correctly reproduce the small transition radius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamic simulations of vertically stratified hot halo gas, we examine the conditions under which clouds can form and condense out of the hot halo medium to potentially fuel star formation in the gaseous disk. We find that halo clouds do not develop from linear isobaric perturbations. This is a regime where the cooling time is longer than the Brunt-Väisälä time, confirming previous linear analysis. We extend the analysis into the nonlinear regime by considering mildly or strongly nonlinear perturbations with overdensities up to 100, also varying the initial height, the cloud size, and the metallicity of the gas. Here, the result depends on the ratio of cooling time to the time required to accelerate the cloud to the sound speed (similar to the dynamical time). If the ratio exceeds a critical value near unity, the cloud is accelerated without further cooling and gets disrupted by Kelvin-Helmholtz and/or Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. If it is less than the critical value, the cloud cools and condenses before disruption. Accreting gas with overdensities of 10-20 is expected to be marginally unstable; the cooling fraction will depend on the metallicity, the size of the incoming cloud, and the distance to the galaxy. Locally enhanced overdensities within cold streams have a higher likelihood of cooling out. Our results have implications on the evolution of clouds seeded by cold accretion that are barely resolved in current cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and absorption line systems detected in galaxy halos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the buildup of magnetic fields during the formation of Population III star-forming regions by conducting cosmological simulations from realistic initial conditions and varying the Jeans resolution. To investigate this in detail, we start simulations from identical initial conditions, mandating 16, 32, and 64 zones per Jeans length, and study the variation in their magnetic field amplification. We find that, while compression results in some amplification, turbulent velocity fluctuations driven by the collapse can further amplify an initially weak seed field via dynamo action, provided there is sufficient numerical resolution to capture vortical motions (we find this requirement to be 64 zones per Jeans length, slightly larger than but consistent with previous work run with more idealized collapse scenarios). We explore saturation of amplification of the magnetic field, which could potentially become dynamically important in subsequent, fully resolved calculations. We have also identified a relatively surprising phenomenon that is purely hydrodynamic: the higher-resolved simulations possess substantially different characteristics, including higher infall velocity, increased temperatures inside 1000 AU, and decreased molecular hydrogen content in the innermost region. Furthermore, we find that disk formation is suppressed in higher-resolution calculations, at least at the times that we can follow the calculation. We discuss the effect this may have on the buildup of disks over the accretion history of the first clump to form as well as the potential for gravitational instabilities to develop and induce fragmentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations to study the rapid infall phase of the common envelope (CE) interaction of a red giant branch star of mass equal to 0.88 M⊙ and a companion star of mass ranging from 0.9 down to 0.1 M⊙. We first compare the results obtained using two different numerical techniques with different resolutions, and find very good agreement overall. We then compare the outcomes of those simulations with observed systems thought to have gone through a CE. The simulations fail to reproduce those systems in the sense that most of the envelope of the donor remains bound at the end of the simulations and the final orbital separations between the donor's remnant and the companion, ranging from 26.8 down to 5.9 R⊙, are larger than the ones observed. We suggest that this discrepancy vouches for recombination playing an essential role in the ejection of the envelope and/or significant shrinkage of the orbit happening in the subsequent phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform high-resolution (15-30 pc) adaptive mesh simulations to study the impact of momentum-driven active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback in cool-core clusters, focusing in this paper on the formation of cold clumps. The feedback is jet-driven with an energy determined by the amount of cold gas within 500 pc of the super-massive black hole. When the intracluster medium in the core of the cluster becomes marginally stable to radiative cooling, with the thermal instability to the free-fall timescale ratio tTI/tff < 3-10, cold clumps of gas start to form along the propagation direction of the AGN jets. By tracing the particles in the simulations, we find that these cold clumps originate from low entropy (but still hot) gas that is accelerated by the jet to outward radial velocities of a few hundred km s–1. This gas is out of hydrostatic equilibrium and so can cool. The clumps then grow larger as they decelerate and fall toward the center of the cluster, eventually being accreted onto the super-massive black hole. The general morphology, spatial distribution, and estimated Hα morphology of the clumps are in reasonable agreement with observations, although we do not fully replicate the filamentary morphology of the clumps seen in the observations, probably due to missing physics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the long-term evolution of an idealized cool-core galaxy cluster under the influence of momentum-driven active galactic nucleus (AGN) feedback using three-dimensional high-resolution (60 pc) adaptive mesh refinement simulations. The feedback is modeled with a pair of precessing jets whose power is calculated based on the accretion rate of the cold gas surrounding the supermassive black hole (SMBH). The intracluster medium first cools into clumps along the propagation direction of the jets. As the jet power increases, gas condensation occurs isotropically, forming spatially extended structures that resemble the observed Hα filaments in Perseus and many other cool-core clusters. Jet heating elevates the gas entropy, halting clump formation. The cold gas that is not accreted onto the SMBH settles into a rotating disk of ∼1011M☼. The hot gas cools directly onto the disk while the SMBH accretes from its innermost region, powering the AGN that maintains a thermally balanced state for a few Gyr. The mass cooling rate averaged over 7 Gyr is ∼30 M☼ yr–1, an order of magnitude lower than the classic cooling flow value. Medium resolution simulations produce similar results, while in low resolution runs, the cluster experiences cycles of gas condensation and AGN outbursts. Owing to its self-regulating mechanism, AGN feedback can successfully balance cooling with a wide range of model parameters. Our model also produces cold structures in early stages that are in good agreement with the observations. However, the long-lived massive cold disk is unrealistic, suggesting that additional physical processes are still needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform high-resolution hydrodynamic simulations of a Milky Way mass galaxy in a fully cosmological setting using the adaptive mesh refinement code, Enzo, and study the kinematics of gas in the simulated galactic halo. We find that the gas inflow occurs mostly along filamentary structures in the halo. The warm-hot (105 K 6 K) and hot (T > 106 K) ionized gases are found to dominate the overall mass accretion in the system (with -5 M☼ yr–1) over a large range of distances, extending from the virial radius to the vicinity of the disk. Most of the inflowing gas (by mass) does not cool, and the small fraction that manages to cool does so primarily close to the galaxy (R ≲ 100 kpc, with more pronounced cooling at smaller R), perhaps comprising the neutral gas that may be detectable as, e.g., high-velocity clouds. The neutral clouds are embedded within larger, accreting filamentary flows, and represent only a small fraction of the total mass inflow rate. The inflowing gas has relatively low metallicity (Z/Z☼ < 0.2). The outer layers of the filamentary inflows are heated due to compression as they approach the disk. In addition to the inflow, we find high-velocity, metal-enriched outflows of hot gas driven by supernova feedback. Our results are consistent with observations of halo gas at low z. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first systematic study of the warm gas (T = 104 – 5 K) distribution across a galaxy cluster is presented using multiple background QSOs in and around the Virgo Cluster. We detect 25 Lyα absorbers (NH I = 1013.1–15.4 cm–2) in the Virgo velocity range toward 9 of 12 QSO sightlines observed with the Cosmic Origin Spectrograph, with a cluster impact parameter range of 0.36-1.65 Mpc (0.23-1.05 Rvir). Including 18 Lyα absorbers previously detected by STIS or GHRS toward 7 of 11 background QSOs in and around the Virgo Cluster, we establish a sample of 43 absorbers toward a total of 23 background probes for studying the incidence of Lyα absorbers in and around the Virgo Cluster. With these absorbers, we find (1) warm gas is predominantly in the outskirts of the cluster and avoids the X-ray-detected hot intracluster medium (ICM). Also, Lyα absorption strength increases with cluster impact parameter. (2) Lyα-absorbing warm gas traces cold H I-emitting gas in the substructures of the Virgo Cluster. (3) Including the absorbers associated with the surrounding substructures, the warm gas covering fraction (100% for NH I > 1013.1 cm–2) is in agreement with cosmological simulations. We speculate that the observed warm gas is part of large-scale gas flows feeding the cluster both in the ICM and galaxies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]