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Title: VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF A SUPERNOVA-DRIVEN TURBULENT, MAGNETIZED INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM

Abstract

Stellar feedback drives the circulation of matter from the disk to the halo of galaxies. We perform three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a vertical column of the interstellar medium with initial conditions typical of the solar circle in which supernovae drive turbulence and determine the vertical stratification of the medium. The simulations were run using a stable, positivity-preserving scheme for ideal MHD implemented in the FLASH code. We find that the majority ( Almost-Equal-To 90%) of the mass is contained in thermally stable temperature regimes of cold molecular and atomic gas at T < 200 K or warm atomic and ionized gas at 5000 K < T < 10{sup 4.2} K, with strong peaks in probability distribution functions of temperature in both the cold and warm regimes. The 200-10{sup 4.2} K gas fills 50%-60% of the volume near the plane, with hotter gas associated with supernova remnants (30%-40%) and cold clouds (<10%) embedded within. At |z| {approx} 1-2 kpc, transition-temperature (10{sup 5} K) gas accounts for most of the mass and volume, while hot gas dominates at |z| > 3 kpc. The magnetic field in our models has no significant impact on the scale heights of gas in each temperature regime;more » the magnetic tension force is approximately equal to and opposite the magnetic pressure, so the addition of the field does not significantly affect the vertical support of the gas. The addition of a magnetic field does reduce the fraction of gas in the cold (<200 K) regime with a corresponding increase in the fraction of warm ({approx}10{sup 4} K) gas. However, our models lack rotational shear and thus have no large-scale dynamo, which reduces the role of the field in the models compared to reality. The supernovae drive oscillations in the vertical distribution of halo gas, with the period of the oscillations ranging from Almost-Equal-To 30 Myr in the T < 200 K gas to {approx}100 Myr in the 10{sup 6} K gas, in line with predictions by Walters and Cox.« less

Authors:
;  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [6]
  1. Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI (United States)
  2. Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, New York, NY (United States)
  3. Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY (United States)
  4. Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, Whitewater, WI (United States)
  5. Department of Mathematics, Wuerzburg University, Emil Fischer Strasse 30, Wuerzburg (Germany)
  6. Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
Publication Date:
OSTI Identifier:
22034521
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Astrophysical Journal
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 750; Journal Issue: 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; ASTRONOMY; ASTROPHYSICS; COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION; DISTRIBUTION FUNCTIONS; GALAXIES; MAGNETIC FIELDS; MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS; MASS; OSCILLATIONS; PROBABILITY; SHEAR; STRATIFICATION; SUPERNOVA REMNANTS; SUPERNOVAE; THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS; TRANSITION TEMPERATURE; TURBULENCE

Citation Formats

Hill, Alex S, Matthew Haffner, L, Ryan Joung, M, Mac Low, Mordecai-Mark, Benjamin, Robert A, Klingenberg, Christian, and Waagan, Knut. VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF A SUPERNOVA-DRIVEN TURBULENT, MAGNETIZED INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM. United States: N. p., 2012. Web. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/750/2/104.
Hill, Alex S, Matthew Haffner, L, Ryan Joung, M, Mac Low, Mordecai-Mark, Benjamin, Robert A, Klingenberg, Christian, & Waagan, Knut. VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF A SUPERNOVA-DRIVEN TURBULENT, MAGNETIZED INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/750/2/104
Hill, Alex S, Matthew Haffner, L, Ryan Joung, M, Mac Low, Mordecai-Mark, Benjamin, Robert A, Klingenberg, Christian, and Waagan, Knut. 2012. "VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF A SUPERNOVA-DRIVEN TURBULENT, MAGNETIZED INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/750/2/104.
@article{osti_22034521,
title = {VERTICAL STRUCTURE OF A SUPERNOVA-DRIVEN TURBULENT, MAGNETIZED INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM},
author = {Hill, Alex S and Matthew Haffner, L and Ryan Joung, M and Mac Low, Mordecai-Mark and Benjamin, Robert A and Klingenberg, Christian and Waagan, Knut},
abstractNote = {Stellar feedback drives the circulation of matter from the disk to the halo of galaxies. We perform three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a vertical column of the interstellar medium with initial conditions typical of the solar circle in which supernovae drive turbulence and determine the vertical stratification of the medium. The simulations were run using a stable, positivity-preserving scheme for ideal MHD implemented in the FLASH code. We find that the majority ( Almost-Equal-To 90%) of the mass is contained in thermally stable temperature regimes of cold molecular and atomic gas at T < 200 K or warm atomic and ionized gas at 5000 K < T < 10{sup 4.2} K, with strong peaks in probability distribution functions of temperature in both the cold and warm regimes. The 200-10{sup 4.2} K gas fills 50%-60% of the volume near the plane, with hotter gas associated with supernova remnants (30%-40%) and cold clouds (<10%) embedded within. At |z| {approx} 1-2 kpc, transition-temperature (10{sup 5} K) gas accounts for most of the mass and volume, while hot gas dominates at |z| > 3 kpc. The magnetic field in our models has no significant impact on the scale heights of gas in each temperature regime; the magnetic tension force is approximately equal to and opposite the magnetic pressure, so the addition of the field does not significantly affect the vertical support of the gas. The addition of a magnetic field does reduce the fraction of gas in the cold (<200 K) regime with a corresponding increase in the fraction of warm ({approx}10{sup 4} K) gas. However, our models lack rotational shear and thus have no large-scale dynamo, which reduces the role of the field in the models compared to reality. The supernovae drive oscillations in the vertical distribution of halo gas, with the period of the oscillations ranging from Almost-Equal-To 30 Myr in the T < 200 K gas to {approx}100 Myr in the 10{sup 6} K gas, in line with predictions by Walters and Cox.},
doi = {10.1088/0004-637X/750/2/104},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22034521}, journal = {Astrophysical Journal},
issn = {0004-637X},
number = 2,
volume = 750,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu May 10 00:00:00 EDT 2012},
month = {Thu May 10 00:00:00 EDT 2012}
}