Jeans Instability Research Articles

Jeans analysis in fractional gravity

It has recently been demonstrated (Giusti in Phys Rev D 101:124029, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.101.124029) that characteristic traits of Milgrom’s modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) can be replicated from an entirely distinct framework: a fractional variant of Newtonian mechanics. To further assess its validity, this proposal needs to be tested in relevant astrophysical scenarios. Here, we investigate its implications on Jeans gravitational instability and related phenomena. We examine scenarios involving classical matter confined by gravity and extend our analysis to the quantum domain, through a Schrödinger–Newton approach. We also derive a generalized Lane–Emden equation associated with fractional gravity. Through comparisons between the derived stability criteria and the observed stability of Bok globules, we establish constraints on the theory’s parameters to align with observational data.

Digging into the Interior of Hot Cores with ALMA (DIHCA). IV. Fragmentation in High-mass Star-forming Clumps

Fragmentation contributes to the formation and evolution of stars. Observationally, high-mass stars are known to form multiple-star systems, preferentially in cluster environments. Theoretically, Jeans instability has been suggested to determine characteristic fragmentation scales, and thermal or turbulent motion in the parental gas clump mainly contributes to the instability. To search for such a characteristic fragmentation scale, we have analyzed Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 1.33 mm continuum observations toward 30 high-mass star-forming clumps taken by the Digging into the Interior of Hot Cores with ALMA survey. We have identified 573 cores using the dendrogram algorithm and measured the separation of cores by using the Minimum Spanning Tree technique. The core separation corrected by projection effects has a distribution peaked around 5800 au. In order to remove biases produced by different distances and sensitivities, we further smooth the images to a common physical scale and perform completeness tests. Our careful analysis finds a characteristic fragmentation scale of ∼7000 au, comparable to the thermal Jeans length of the clumps. We conclude that thermal Jeans fragmentation plays a dominant role in determining the clump fragmentation in high-mass star-forming regions, without the need to invoke turbulent Jeans fragmentation.

Inefficient star formation in high Mach number environments

Context. The star formation rate (SFR), the number of stars formed per unit of time, is a fundamental quantity in the evolution of the Universe. Aims. While turbulence is believed to play a crucial role in setting the SFR, the exact mechanism remains unclear. Turbulence promotes star formation by compressing the gas, but also slows it down by stabilizing the gas against gravity. Most widely used analytical models rely on questionable assumptions, including: i) integrating over the density PDF, a one-point statistical description that ignores spatial correlation, ii) selecting self-gravitating gas based on a density threshold that often ignores turbulent dispersion, iii) assuming the freefall time as the timescale for estimating SFR without considering the need to rejuvenate the density PDF, iv) assuming the density probability distribution function (PDF) to be log-normal. This leads to the reliance on fudge factors for rough agreement with simulations. Even more seriously, when a more accurate density PDF is being used, the classical theory predicts a SFR that is essentially 0. Methods. Improving upon the only existing model that incorporates the spatial correlation of the density field, we present a new analytical model that, in a companion paper, is rigorously compared against a large series of numerical simulations. We calculate the time needed to rejuvenate density fluctuations of a given density and spatial scale, revealing that it is generally much longer than the freefall time, rendering the latter inappropriate for use. Results. We make specific predictions regarding the role of the Mach number, ℳ, and the driving scale of turbulence divided by the mean Jeans length. At low to moderate Mach numbers, turbulence does not reduce and may even slightly promote star formation by broadening the PDF. However, at higher Mach numbers, most density fluctuations are stabilized by turbulent dispersion, leading to a steep drop in the SFR as the Mach number increases. A fundamental parameter is the exponent of the power spectrum of the natural logarithm of the density, ln ρ, characterizing the spatial distribution of the density field. In the high Mach regime, the SFR strongly depends on it, as lower values imply a paucity of massive, gravitationally unstable clumps. Conclusions. We provide a revised analytical model to calculate the SFR of a system, considering not only the mean density and Mach number but also the spatial distribution of the gas through the power spectrum of ln ρ, as well as the injection scale of turbulence. At low Mach numbers, the model predicts a relatively high SFR nearly independent of ℳ, whereas for high Mach, the SFR is a steeply decreasing function of ℳ.

Nonlinear Jeans instability analysis of gravitating astrofluids in Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld gravity framework

The nonlinear Jeans instability dynamics in viscoelastic astrofluids within the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld (EiBI) gravitational framework excitable in star-forming interstellar cloud fluids is semi-analytically investigated. Application of multiple scaling techniques here results in a unique form of the Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) equation moderated with a peculiar set of distinctive fluid polyparametric coefficients. A numerical illustrative platform portrays the excitation of diversified compressive solitary-chain wave patterns. The evolutionary existence of such structural patterns is further confirmed geometrically with the help of illustrative phase-plane analyses. The various parametric stabilizers and destabilizers, alongside accelerating and decelerating factors on the clouds, are illustratively analysed. It is seen that the composite cloud stability is significantly influenced by the strength polarity of the gravitational EiBI-parameter (χ). The dependency of the obtained solitary wave patterns on the EiBI-polarity is further confirmed in a numerical simulation platform illustratively. Our analysis also highlights that the influence of material density on the system stability is dependent on the EiBI-polarity. The nonlinear spatiotemporal evolution of the instability reveals a unique type of soliton fission phenomenon, indicative of inherently produced additional disturbances within the astrofluid. Our obtained results could be widely helpful in application to the EiBI-centric diverse astrocosmic phenomena, such as bounded structure formation and evolution in diverse complex astroenvirons.

Nonlinear modulation of dispersive fast magnetosonic waves in an inhomogeneous rotating solar low-β magnetoplasma

Abstract We study the modulation of fast magnetosonic waves (MSWs) in rotating inhomogeneous low-β magnetoplasmas with the effects of gravitation and the Coriolis force. By employing the standard multiple-scale reductive perturbation technique (RPT), we derive a nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equation that governs the evolution of slowly varying MSW envelopes. The fast MSW becomes dispersive by the effects of the Coriolis force in the fluid motion, and the magnetic field and density inhomogeneity effects favor the Jeans instability in self-gravitating plasmas in a larger domain of the wave number (k, below the Jeans critical wave number, kJ) than homogeneous plasmas. The relative influence of the Jeans frequency (ωJ, associated with the gravitational force) and the angular frequency (Ω0, relating to the Coriolis force) on the Jeans carrier MSW mode and the modulational instability (MI) of the MSW envelope is studied. We show that the MSW envelope (corresponding to the unstable carrier Jeans mode with ωJ > 2Ω0 and k < kJ) is always unstable against the plane wave perturbation with no cut-offs for growth rates. In contrast, the stable Jeans mode with ωJ > 2Ω0 but k > kJ manifests either modulational stability or MI having a finite growth rate before being cut off. We find an enhancement of the MI growth rate by the influence of magnetic field or density inhomogeneity. The case with constant gravity force (other than the self-gravity) perpendicular to the magnetic field is also briefly discussed to show that the fast magnetosonic carrier mode is always unstable, giving MI of slowly varying envelopes with no cut-offs for the growth rates. Possible applications of MI in solar plasmas, such as those in the X-ray corona, are also briefly discussed.

Determination of dark matter distribution in Ursa Major III and constraints on dark matter annihilation* *Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11947005, 12175248, 12205388, 12227804), the Science & Technology Development Fund of Tianjin Education Commission for Higher Education (2020KJ003), and the PhD Research Startup Foundation of Tianjin Normal University (52XB1912)

The recently discovered satellite dwarf galaxy Ursa Major III provides a promising opportunity to explore the signatures resulting from dark matter (DM) annihilation owing to its proximity and large J-factor. Given the absence of an excess of γ-ray signatures originating from Ursa Major III, observations of γ-rays, such as those from Fermi-LAT, can be utilized to set constraints on the DM annihilation cross-section. In this study, we determined the DM density profile and considered the relationship between DM density and velocity dispersion at different locations within Ursa Major III through Jeans analysis. We calculated the J-factor of Ursa Major III for s-wave annihilation along with the effective J-factors for p-wave and Sommerfeld enhanced annihilation scenarios. Employing these derived J-factors, we set stringent constraints on DM annihilation cross-sections in three scenarios. Given the substantial impact of member star identification on the J-factor of Ursa Major III, we further calculated J-factors under the exclusion of the largest velocity outlier. Our analysis reveals a notable reduction in the median value and an increase in the deviation of J-factors, thereby leading to considerably weaker constraints.

Halo densities and pericenter distances of the bright Milky Way satellites as a test of dark matter physics

ABSTRACT We provide new constraints on the dark matter halo density profile of Milky Way (MW) dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) using the phase-space distribution function (DF) method. After assessing the systematics of the approach against mock data from the Gaia Challenge project, we apply the DF analysis to the entire kinematic sample of well-measured MW dwarf satellites for the first time. Contrary to previous findings for some of these objects, we find that the DF analysis yields results consistent with the standard Jeans analysis. In particular, in this study we rediscover (i) a large diversity in the inner halo densities of dSphs (bracketed by Draco and Fornax), and (ii) an anticorrelation between inner halo density and pericenter distance of the bright MW satellites. Regardless of the strength of the anticorrelation, we find that the distribution of these satellites in density versus pericenter space is inconsistent with the results of the high-resolution N-body simulations that include a disc potential. Our analysis motivates further studies on the role of internal feedback and dark matter microphysics in these dSphs.

Jeans instability in the particle-antiparticle system with the different gravitational charges and the ALPHA-g experiment

The principle of binding energy conservation during charge conjugation and the hypothesis of gravitational repulsion of antiparticle masses is used to formulate appropriate two-component hydrodynamics. The dispersion relation for small perturbations is obtained and analyzed. The modified Jeans instability for matter-antimatter system is found as the function of arbitrary fraction of the repulsive matter. For the hydrogen-antihydrogen system, the recent ALPHA-g experimental result is used to apply to the early Universe evolution. It is shown that the non-damping sound mode exists if the annihilation damping is absent.

Gravitational instability in magnetized viscoelastic fluid with radiation pressure effect

This study examines the gravitational instability of a finitely conducting magnetized viscoelastic fluid, under the influence of radiation pressure within the framework of a generalized hydrodynamic fluid model. The general dispersion relation, valid for strongly and weakly coupled fluids under kinetic and hydrodynamic limits respectively, is derived using normal mode analysis for a transverse wave propagation mode. The obtained Jeans instability criteria, in terms of critical Jeans wavenumbers under both limits, are modified by the presence of radiative effects, viscoelastic compressional speed, and Alfvén wave velocity. The findings highlight that viscoelastic compressional speed and radiative pressure slow the Jeans instability's growth rate, exerting a stabilizing effect on the initiation of gravitational collapse. The present investigation provides valuable insights into the role of radiative mechanisms in the gravitational collapse within the strongly coupled region of molecular cloud clumps.

Modification to the Jeans criterion by external tides: anisotropic fragmentation and formation of filaments

ABSTRACT The Jeans criterion sets the foundation of our understanding of gravitational collapse. Jog studied the fragmentation of gas under external tides and derived a dispersion relation $l^{\prime } = l_{\rm Jeans} \frac{1}{(1 + \lambda _0^{\prime } / 4 \pi G \rho _0)^{1/2}} \,\,.$ She further concludes that the Jeans mass is $m_{\rm incorrect}^{\prime }=m_{\rm Jeans} [1/(1 + \lambda _0^{\prime } / 4 \pi G \rho _0)^{3/2}]$. We clarify that due to the inhomogeneous nature of tides, this characteristic mass is incorrect. Under weak tides, the mass is $m \approx \rho \, l_1 l_2 l_3$, where the modifications to Jeans lengths along all three dimensions need to be considered; when the tide is strong enough, collapse can only occur once 1 or 2 dimensions. In the latter case, tides can stretch the gas, leading to the formation of filaments.

Radiation pressure and galactic cosmic rays-driven gravitational instability in rotating and magnetized viscoelastic fluids

This paper studies the combined effects of radiation and galactic cosmic ray pressures on the gravitational instability of magnetized and rotating viscoelastic fluids. The dispersion relations are derived using the normal mode analysis and discussed in the hydrodynamic (weakly coupled fluid) and kinetic (strongly coupled fluid) limits. These dispersion relations are analyzed separately for transverse and longitudinal wave propagation modes. Jeans instability criteria are obtained for kinetic and hydrodynamic limits for both modes of wave propagation, and it is found that the critical Jeans wavenumbers in each case are modified due to the presence of viscoelastic effects, radiation and cosmic rays pressures, and Alfvên wave velocity. It is also observed that the radiation pressure, cosmic ray pressure and viscoelastic parameters suppress the growth rate and thus have stabilizing effects on the Jeans instability. However, cosmic ray diffusion has a destabilizing effect on the onset of gravitational instability. The effects of various parameters on the growth rate of instability are calculated numerically and the outcomes are depicted graphically. The results of the present analysis shall be helpful in understanding the impact of cosmic rays and radiative mechanisms on the gravitational collapse in the viscoelastic region of molecular cloud clumps.

The ALMA Survey of 70 μm Dark High-mass Clumps in Early Stages (ASHES). XI. Statistical Study of Early Fragmentation

Fragmentation during the early stages of high-mass star formation is crucial for understanding the formation of high-mass clusters. We investigated fragmentation within 39 high-mass star-forming clumps as part of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array Survey of 70 μm Dark High-mass Clumps in Early Stages (ASHES) survey. Considering projection effects, we have estimated core separations for 839 cores identified from the continuum emission and found mean values between 0.08 and 0.32 pc within each clump. We find compatibility of the observed core separations and masses with the thermal Jeans length and mass, respectively. We also present subclump structures revealed by the 7 m array continuum emission. Comparison of the Jeans parameters using clump and subclump densities with the separation and masses of gravitationally bound cores suggests that they can be explained by clump fragmentation, implying the simultaneous formation of subclumps and cores within rather than a step-by-step hierarchical fragmentation. The number of cores in each clump positively correlates with the clump surface density and the number expected from the thermal Jeans fragmentation. We also find that the higher the fraction of protostellar cores, the larger the dynamic range of the core mass, implying that the cores are growing in mass as the clump evolves. The ASHES sample exhibits various fragmentation patterns: aligned, scattered, clustered, and subclustered. Using the Q -parameter, which can help distinguish between centrally condensed and subclustered spatial core distributions, we finally find that in the early evolutionary stages of high-mass star formation, cores tend to follow a subclustered distribution.

Bottom’s Dream and the Amplification of Filamentary Gas Structures and Stellar Spiral Arms

Abstract Theories of spiral structure traditionally separate into tight-winding Lin–Shu spiral density waves and the swing-amplified material patterns of Goldreich & Lynden-Bell and Julian & Toomre. In this paper we consolidate these two types of spirals into a unified description, treating density waves beyond the tight-winding limit, in the regime of shearing and nonsteady open spirals. This shearing wave scenario novelly captures swing amplification that enables structure formation above conventional Q thresholds. However, it also highlights the fundamental role of spiral forcing on the amplification process in general, whether the wave is shearing or not. Thus it captures resonant and nonresonant mode growth through the donkey effect described by Lynden-Bell & Kalnajs and, critically, the cessation of growth when donkey behavior is no longer permitted. Our calculations predict growth exclusive to trailing spirals above the Jeans length, the prominence of spirals across a range of orientations that increases with decreasing arm multiplicity, and a critical orientation where growth is fastest that is the same for both modes and material patterns. Predicted structures are consistent with highly regular, high-multiplicity gaseous spur features and long filaments spaced close to the Jeans scale in spirals and bars. Applied to stellar disks, conditions favor low multiplicity (m < 5) open trailing spirals with pitch angles in the observed range 10° < i p < 50°. The results of this work serve as a basis for describing spirals as a unified class of transient waves, abundantly stimulated but narrowly selected for growth depending on local conditions.

Polytropic spherical astrocosmic fluid stability in the EiBI gravity with strong collective correlative effects

We herein present a dynamical analysis of the Jeans (gravitational) instability in a viscoelastic polytropic astrocloud within the Eddington-inspired Born-Infeld (EiBI) gravity framework in spherical geometry. The zeroth-order material density curvature corrections to the effective self-gravitational potential are properly incorporated. The applied spherical normal mode analysis yields a unique form of monic cubic dispersion relation with multiparametric coefficients dependent on the diverse equilibrium astrofluidic conditions without invoking any kind of traditional quasi-classic approximation. It is seen that the positive EiBI gravity parameter (χ>0) acts as a stabilizing agent and a negative EiBI gravity parameter (χ<0) acts as a destabilizing agent against the inward non-local self-gravity action. Additionally, we find that larger astroclouds are more prone to gravitational collapse, irrespective of the χ-polarity, and vice-versa. It is further investigated that the cloud temperature plays a stabilizing role at larger wavenumbers and destabilizing at smaller wavenumbers for χ>0. However, for χ<0, the fluid temperature consistently exhibits a destabilizing effect. The viscoelastic relaxation time stabilizes the astrofluid against the self-gravity irrespective of the χ-polarity. The fluid density acts as a stabilizer for χ>0, destabilizer for χ<0, and so forth. This study could be potentially applicable in the EiBI-modified gravitational theory in exploring gravity-driven large-scale astrocosmic phenomena towards structure formation mechanism via the canonical Jeans condensation in diverse astrocosmic conditions.

Clumpy structures within the turbulent primordial cloud

ABSTRACT The primordial clouds in the mini-haloes hatch the first generation stars of the Universe, which play a crucial role in cosmic evolution. In this paper, we investigate how turbulence impacts the structure of primordial star-forming clouds. Previous cosmological simulations of the first star formation predicted a typical mass of around $\mathrm{ 100 \, M_\odot }$. This conflicts with recent observations of extremely metal-poor stars, suggesting a lower mass scale of about $\mathrm{25 \, M_\odot }$. The discrepancy may arise from unresolved turbulence in the star-forming cloud, driven by primordial gas accretion during mini-halo formation in the previous simulations. To quantitatively examine the turbulence effect on the primordial cloud formation, we employ the adaptive mesh refinement code Enzo to model the gas cloud with primordial composition, including artificially driven turbulence on the cloud scale and relevant gas physics. This artificially driven turbulence utilizes a stochastic forcing model to mimic the unresolved turbulence inside mini-haloes. Our results show that the turbulence with high Mach number and compressional mode effectively fragments the cloud into several clumps, each with dense cores of $\mathrm{22.7 - 174.9 \, M_\odot }$ that undergo Jeans instability to form stars. Fragmentation caused by intense and compressive turbulence prevents a runaway collapse of the cloud. The self-bound clumps with smaller masses in the turbulent primordial clouds suggest a possible pathway to decrease the theoretical mass scale of the first stars, further reconciling the mass discrepancy between simulations and observations.

Symmetries of the Large Scale Structures of the Universe as a Phenomenology of a Fractal Turbulence: The Role of the Plasma Component

We present a new perspective on the symmetries that govern the formation of large-scale structures across the Universe, particularly focusing on the transition from the seeds of galaxy clusters to the seeds of galaxies themselves. We address two main features of cosmological fluid dynamics pertaining to both the linear and non-linear regimes. The linear dynamics of cosmological perturbations within the Hubble horizon is characterized by the Jeans length, which separates stable configurations from unstable fluctuations due to the gravitational effect on sufficiently large (and therefore, massive enough) overdensities. On the other hand, the non-linear dynamics of the cosmological fluid is associated with a turbulent behavior once the Reynolds numbers reach a sufficiently high level. This turbulent regime leads to energy dissipation across smaller and smaller scales, resulting in a fractal distribution of eddies throughout physical space. The proposed scenario suggests that the spatial scale of eddy formation is associated with the Jeans length of various levels of fragmentation from an original large-scale structure. By focusing on the fragmentation of galaxy cluster seeds versus galaxy seeds, we arrived at a phenomenological law that links the ratio of the two structure densities to the number of galaxies in each cluster and to the Hausdorff number of the Universe matter distribution. Finally, we introduced a primordial magnetic field and studied its influence on the Jeans length dynamics. The resulting anisotropic behavior of the density contrast led us to infer that the main features of the turbulence could be reduced to a 2D Euler equation. Numerical simulations showed that the two lowest wavenumbers contained the major energy contribution of the spectrum.

Gauge preheating with full general relativity

We study gauge preheating following pseudoscalar-driven inflation in full general relativity. We implement the Baumgarte-Shapiro-Shibata-Nakamura (BSSN) scheme to solve the full nonlinear evolution of the metric alongside the dynamics of the pseudoscalar and gauge fields. The dynamics of the background and emission of gravitational waves are broadly consistent with simulations in a Friedmann-Lemaître-Robertson-Walker (FLRW) spacetime. We find large, localized overdensities in the BSSN simulations of order δ = δρ/ρ ∼ 30, and the dimensionless power spectrum of δ peaks above unity. These overdense regions are seeded on length scales only slightly smaller than the horizon, and have a compactness C ∼ 0.1. The scale of peak compactness is shorter than the Jeans length, which implies that pressure of the matter fields plays an important role in the evolution of these objects.

A Fast Second-order Solver for Stiff Multifluid Dust and Gas Hydrodynamics

We present MDIRK: a multifluid second-order diagonally implicit Runge–Kutta method to study momentum transfer between gas and an arbitrary number (N) of dust species. The method integrates the equations of hydrodynamics with an implicit–explicit scheme and solves the stiff source term in the momentum equation with a diagonally implicit, asymptotically stable Runge–Kutta method (DIRK). In particular, DIRK admits a simple analytical solution that can be evaluated with O(N) operations, instead of standard matrix inversion, which is O(N)3 . Therefore, the analytical solution significantly reduces the computational cost of the multifluid method, making it suitable for studying the dynamics of systems with particle-size distributions. We demonstrate that the method conserves momentum to machine precision and converges to the correct equilibrium solution with constant external acceleration. To validate our numerical method we present a series of simple hydrodynamic tests, including damping of sound waves, dusty shocks, a multifluid dusty Jeans instability, and a steady-state gas–dust drift calculation. The simplicity of MDIRK lays the groundwork to build fast high-order, asymptotically stable multifluid methods.

Распространение магнитогидродинамических волн и гравитационная неустойчивость в астрофизической анизотропной и теплопроводной плазме

The hydrodynamic instability of a magnetised, self-gravitating rotating anisotropic plasma is analysed in the collisionless approximation and taking into account the heat flux vector on the basis of the modified Chew-Goldberger-Low equations. The dispersion relation is derived and simplified cases of propagation of small-amplitude perturbation waves are discussed, with modified analytical criteria for hydrodynamic instability obtained. In accordance with the general dispersion relation, three cases when the propagation of the perturbation wave passes across, along, and obliquely to the magnetic field vector are specifically considered. It is shown that anisotropic pressure and heat flux not only modify the classical Jeans instability criterion but also induce new unstable regions. It is found that the presence of uniform plasma rotation reduces the critical wave number and has a stabilising effect on the gravitational instability criterion for transverse propagation of the perturbation wave and has no effect in the case of its longitudinal propagation. The inclusion of thermal flows leads to the appearance of two additional wave modes. The results obtained are important for the construction of evolutionary magnetohydrodynamic models of collisionless astrophysical plasma.

Effects of electron inertia and finite-Larmor radius correction on Jeans instability of quantum plasma with the impact of cosmic pressure

We present a theoretical investigation of the Jeans instability in quantum plasma, taking into consideration cosmic ray (CR) pressure and diffusion effects using a generalized magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) model. Our analysis incorporates finite electron inertia, finite electrical resistivity, and finite Larmor radius (FLR) correction. By applying the normal mode technique, we derive a unique form of a generalized dispersion relation that describes the behavior of the system. We further discuss this dispersion relation under different limiting cases. Interestingly, we find that all considered parameters have distinct impacts on the growth rate of the system in various scenarios. Additionally, our exploration reveals that both CR-driven acoustic speed as well as quantum parameter influence the conditions for Jeans instability while the remaining parameters do not have any impact on it. Consequently, when combined with the quantum parameter, electron inertia and FLR correction act as stabilizing agents to suppress instability. This research sheds light on the intricate processes involved in structure formation in the universe, highlighting the significance of considering quantum corrections, electron inertia, and FLR to accurately model the dynamics and stability of cosmic plasma systems.