FEEDBACK FROM MASSIVE STARS AND GAS EXPULSION FROM PROTO-GLOBULAR CLUSTERS

Journal Article · Fri Nov 20 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/2041-8205/814/1/L14· OSTI ID:22518681

Calura, F.; Romano, D.; D’Ercole, A. ^[1]; Few, C. G. ^[2]

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1. INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Ranzani 1, I-40127 Bologna (Italy)
2. School of Physics, University of Exeter, Stocker Road, Exeter EX4 4QL (United Kingdom)

Globular clusters (GCs) are considerably more complex structures than previously thought, harboring at least two stellar generations that present clearly distinct chemical abundances. Scenarios explaining the abundance patterns in GCs mostly assume that originally the clusters had to be much more massive than today, and that the second generation of stars originates from the gas shed by stars of the first generation (FG). The lack of metallicity spread in most GCs further requires that the supernova-enriched gas ejected by the FG is completely lost within ∼30 Myr, a hypothesis never tested by means of three-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. In this paper, we use 3D hydrodynamic simulations including stellar feedback from winds and supernovae, radiative cooling and self-gravity to study whether a realistic distribution of OB associations in a massive proto-GC of initial mass M{sub tot} ∼ 10{sup 7} M{sub ⊙} is sufficient to expel its entire gas content. Our numerical experiment shows that the coherence of different associations plays a fundamental role: as the bubbles interact, distort, and merge, they carve narrow tunnels that reach deeper and deeper toward the innermost cluster regions, and through which the gas is able to escape. Our results indicate that after 3 Myr, the feedback from stellar winds is responsible for the removal of ∼40% of the pristine gas, and that after 14 Myr, 99% of the initial gas mass has been removed.

• OSTI ID: 22518681
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Letters Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 814; ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
FEEDBACK
GRAVITATION
HYDRODYNAMICS
HYPOTHESIS
MASS
METALLICITY
RADIATIVE COOLING
STAR CLUSTERS
STELLAR WINDS
SUPERNOVAE