Transport of gas from disk to halo in starforming galaxies

Abstract

Abstract Using 3-D gas dynamic simulations, we study the supernova (SNe) driven transport of gas from the galactic disk. We assume that SNe are distributed randomly and uniformly in the galactic plane and we consider sufficiently high volume SNe rates that are typical for starforming galaxies: νSN = (0.3 − 3) × 10−11 pc−3 yr−1. We found that under such conditions, a major part of gas locked initially in the galactic disk is transported up to ∼ 1 − 5 stellar scale heights within several millions years. As expected gas transport is more efficient in the case of a thinner stellar disk. An decrease/increase of SN rate in the galactic disk with the same stellar scale height leads to an enlarging/shortening of time scale for gas transport. Independent of SN rate, the major fraction of the swept up gas is in the cold phase (T < 103 K), though its volume filling factor is rather small, ∼1-3%. Hot gas with T > 106 K is elevated to larger heights than cold gas.