Radiation hydrodynamics of triggered star formation: the effect of the diffuse field Thomas Haworth University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
Radiation hydrodynamics models of triggered star formation routinely neglect the contribution of diffuse field radiation under the assumption that it has negligible effect on the global ionization structure. We have directly included the diffuse field in models of radiatively driven implosion and demonstrated that the effect is in fact significant; altering the morphology and compression rate of bright rimmed clouds, therefore impacting star formation rates and efficiencies.
Caption: Snapshots at 200kyr of the logarithmic density field across a slice of the 4pc^3 box from our radiatively driven implosion models. From left to right the models use increasingly sophisticated treatments of the radiation field. The left hand model considers monochromatic radiation impinging plane parallel from the left and does not include the diffuse field. The middle model builds on this by using polychromatic radiation and the right hand model further treats the diffuse field. The impact of the diffuse radiation field is clearly significant, establishing both higher densities over a larger volume and a very different morphology of the resulting structure.
Collaborators: Tim J. Harries, University of Exeter, UK	Key publication