The Kelvin–Helmholtz instability in the Orion nebula: the effect of radiation pressure

Abstract

The recent observations of rippled structures on the surface of the Orion molecular cloud (Bern\'{e} et al. 2010), have been attributed to the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability. The wavelike structures which have mainly seen near star-forming regions taking place at the interface between the hot diffuse gas, which is ionized by massive stars, and the cold dense molecular clouds. The radiation pressure of massive stars and stellar clusters is one of the important issues that has been considered frequently in the dynamics of clouds. Here, we investigate the influence of radiation pressure, from well-known Trapezium cluster in the Orion nebula, on the evolution of KH instability. The stability of the interface between HII region and molecular clouds in the presence of the radiation pressure, has been studied using the linear perturbation analysis for the certain range of the wavelengths. The linear analysis show that consideration of the radiation pressure intensifies the growth rate of KH modes and consequently decreases the e-fold time-scale of the instability. On the other hand the domain of the instability is extended and includes the more wavelengths, consisting of smaller ones rather than the case when the effect of the radiation pressure is not considered. Our results shows that for $\lambda_{\rm KH}>0.15\rm pc$, the growth rate of KH instability dose not depend to the radiation pressure. Based on our results, the radiation pressure is a triggering mechanism in development of the KH instability and subsequently formation of turbulent sub-structures in the molecular clouds near massive stars. The role of magnetic fields in the presence of the radiation pressure is also investigated and it is resulted that the magnetic field suppresses the effects induced by the radiation pressure.