English

The Influence of the Gravitational Acceleration on the Supernova-Driven P arker Instability

Astrophysics 2008-11-26 v2

Abstract

Within a framework of 2D MHD simulations, we explore the dynamical regimes initi ated by a supernova explosion in a magnetized stratified ISM. We concentrate on the formation of large scale magnetic structures and outflows connected with the Parker instability. For the sake of simplicity we show only models with a fixed explosion energy corresponding to a single SN occuring in host galaxies with different fixed values of the gravitational acceleration gg and different ratios of specific heats. We show that in general depending on these two parameters, three different regimes are possible: a) a slowly growing Parker instability on time scales much longer than the galac tic rotation period for small gg, b) the Parker instability growing at roughly the rotation period, which for ratios of specific heats larger than 1 is accompanied byan outflow resulting from the explosion for intermediate gg, and c) a rapidly g rowing instability and a strong blowout flow for large gg. By means of numerical simul ations and analytical estimates we show that the explosion energy and gravitational acceleration which separate the three regimes scale as Eg2Eg^2\sim const in the 2D case. We expect that in the 3D case this scaling law is Eg3Eg^3\sim const. Our simulations demonstrate furthermore, that a single SN explosion can lead to the growth of multiple Parker loops in the disc and large scale magnetic field loops in the halo, extending over 2-3 kpc horizontally and up to 3 kpc vertically abov e the midplane of the disc.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0105381,
  title  = {The Influence of the Gravitational Acceleration on the Supernova-Driven P arker Instability},
  author = {A. Steinacker and Yu. A. Shchekinov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0105381},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

16 pages, 6 ps figs, corrected references, MNRAS, 325, 208