Formation and Collapse of Quiescent Cloud Cores Induced by Dynamic Compressions

Abstract

We present numerical hydrodynamic simulations of the formation, evolution, and gravitational collapse of isothermal molecular cloud cores in spherical geometry. A compressive wave is set up in a constant sub-Jeans density distribution of radius r = 1 pc. As the wave travels through the simulation grid, a shock-bounded spherical shell is formed. The inner shock of this shell reaches and bounces off the center, leaving behind a central core with an initially almost uniform density distribution, surrounded by an envelope consisting of the material in the shock-bounded shell, which at late times develops a logarithmic slope close to -2, even in noncollapsing cases. The central core and the envelope are separated by a mild shock. The central core grows to sizes of ~0.1 pc and resembles a Bonnor-Ebert (BE) sphere, although it has significant dynamical differences: its self-gravity is initially negligible, and it is confined by the ram pressure of the infalling material, thus growing continuously in mass and size. With the appropriate parameters, the core mass eventually reaches an effective Jeans mass, at which time the core begins to collapse. Thus, the core evolves from a stable regime to an unstable one, implying the existence of a time delay between the appearance of the core and the onset of its collapse, but due to its growth in mass, rather than to the dissipation of its internal turbulence, as is often believed. These results suggest that prestellar cores may approximate BE structures, which are, however, of variable mass and may or may not experience gravitational collapse, in qualitative agreement with the large observed frequency of cores with BE-like profiles.