Cloud formation from large-scale instabilities

Abstract

AbstractWe discuss recent advances in cloud formation via gravitational instability under the action of self-gravity, magnetic fields, rotational shear, active stars, and/or stellar spiral arms. When shear is strong and the spiral arms are weak, applicable to flocculent galaxies at large, swing amplification exhibits nonlinear threshold behavior such that disks with a Toomre parameter Q < Qc experience gravitational runaway. For most realistic conditions, local models yield Qc ~ 1.4, similar to the observed star formation thresholds. When shear is weak, on the other hand, as in galactic central parts or inside spiral arms, magneto-Jeans instability is very powerful to form spiral-arm substructures including gaseous spurs and giant clouds. The wiggle and Parker instabilities proposed for cloud formation appear to be suppressed by strong non-steady motions inherent in vertically-extended spiral shocks, suggesting that gravitational instability is a primary candidate for cloud formation.