Tree-based solvers for adaptive mesh refinement code FLASH III: a novel scheme for radiation pressure on dust and gas and radiative transfer from diffuse sources

0571485 - ASÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Klepitko, A. - Walch, S. - Wünsch, Richard - Seifried, D. - Dinnbier, F. - Haid, S.
Tree-based solvers for adaptive mesh refinement code FLASH III: a novel scheme for radiation pressure on dust and gas and radiative transfer from diffuse sources.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Roč. 21, č. 1 (2023), s. 160-184. ISSN 0035-8711. E-ISSN 1365-2966
R&D Projects: GA ČR(CZ) GA19-15008S
Institutional support: RVO:67985815
Keywords : radiative transfer * massive stars * radiative transfer
OECD category: Astronomy (including astrophysics,space science)
Impact factor: 4.8, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stad385

Radiation is an important contributor to the energetics of the interstellar medium, yet its transport is difficult to solve numerically. We present a novel approach towards solving radiative transfer of diffuse sources via backwards ray tracing. Here, we focus on the radiative transfer of infrared radiation and the radiation pressure on dust. The new module, TreeRay/RadPressure, is an extension to the novel radiative transfer method TreeRay implemented in the grid-based Magneto-Hydrodynamics code Flash. In TreeRay/RadPressure, every cell and every star particle is a source of infrared radiation. We also describe how gas, dust, and radiation are coupled via a chemical network. This allows us to compute the local dust temperature in thermal equilibrium, leading to a significantly improvement over the classical grey approximation. In several tests, we demonstrate that the scheme produces the correct radiative intensities as well as the correct momentum input by radiation pressure. Subsequently, we apply our new scheme to model massive star formation from a collapsing, turbulent core of 150 M-?. We include the effects of both, ionizing and infrared radiation on the dynamics of the core. We find that the newborn massive star prevents fragmentation in its proximity due to radiative heating. Over time, dust and radiation temperature equalize, while the gas temperature can be either warmer due to shock heating or colder due to insufficient dust-gas coupling. Compared to gravity, the effects of radiation pressure are insignificant for the stellar mass on the simulated time-scale in this work.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0343073