English

Evolution of Primordial Protostellar Clouds --- Quasi-Static Analysis ---

Astrophysics 2009-10-30 v1

Abstract

The contraction processes of metal-free molecular clouds of starlike mass (or cloud cores) are investigated. We calculate radiative transfer of the H_2 lines and examine quasi-static contraction with radiative cooling. Comparing two time-scales, the free-fall time t_ff and the time-scale of quasi-static contraction t_qsc (nearly equal to t_cool, the cooling time) of these cores, we find that the ratio of the two time-scales t_ff/t_qsc, i.e., the efficiency of cooling, becomes larger with contraction even under the existence of cold and opaque envelopes. In particular, for fragments of primordial filamentary clouds, for which t_ff is nearly equal to t_qsc at the fragmentation epoch, they collapse dynamically in the free-fall time-scale. This efficiency of cooling is unique to line cooling.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9809232,
  title  = {Evolution of Primordial Protostellar Clouds --- Quasi-Static Analysis ---},
  author = {Kazuyuki Omukai and Ryoichi Nishi and Hideya Uehara and Hajime Susa},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9809232},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

13 pages, 8 Postscript figures, uses ptptex

R2 v1 2026-07-22T09:42:31.111Z