STAR FORMATION IN DISK GALAXIES. I. FORMATION AND EVOLUTION OF GIANT MOLECULAR CLOUDS VIA GRAVITATIONAL INSTABILITY AND CLOUD COLLISIONS

Abstract

We investigate the formation and evolution of giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in a Milky-Way-like disk galaxy with a flat rotation curve. We perform a series of three-dimensional adaptive mesh refinement numerical simulations that follow both the global evolution on scales of ~20 kpc and resolve down to scales 10 pc with a multiphase atomic interstellar medium. In this first study, we omit star formation and feedback, and focus on the processes of gravitational instability and cloud collisions and interactions. We define clouds as regions with n H ≥ 100 cm-3 and track the evolution of individual clouds as they orbit through the galaxy from their birth to their eventual destruction via merger or via destructive collision with another cloud. After ~140 Myr a large fraction of the gas in the disk has fragmented into clouds with masses ~106 M ☉ and a mass spectrum similar to that of Galactic GMCs. The disk settles into a quasi-steady-state in which gravitational scattering of clouds keeps the disk near the threshold of global gravitational instability. The cloud collision time is found to be a small fraction, ~1/5, of the orbital time, and this is an efficient mechanism to inject turbulence into the clouds. This helps to keep clouds only moderately gravitationally bound, with virial parameters of order unity. Many other observed GMC properties, such as mass surface density, angular momentum, velocity dispersion, and vertical distribution, can be accounted for in this simple model with no stellar feedback.