Probing the role of self-gravity in clouds impacted by AGN-driven winds

The impact of winds and jet-inflated bubbles driven by active galactic nuclei (AGN) are believed to significantly affect the host galaxy's interstellar medium (ISM) and regulate star formation.

To explore this scenario, we perform a suite of hydrodynamic simulations to model the interaction between turbulent star-forming clouds and highly pressurised AGN-driven outflows, focusing on the effects of self-gravity.

Our results demonstrate that the cloudlets fragmented by the wind can become gravitationally bound, significantly increasing their survival time.

While external pressurisation leads to a global collapse of the clouds in cases of weaker winds ($10^{42}-10^{43}~{\rm erg~s^{-1}}$), higher-power winds ($10^{44}-10^{45}~{\rm erg~s^{-1}}$) disperse the gas and cause localised collapse of the cloudlets.

We also demonstrate that a kinetic energy-dominated wind is more efficient in accelerating and dispersing the gas than a thermal wind with the same power.

The interaction can give rise to multi-phase outflows with velocities ranging from a few 100 to several 1000~${\rm km\,s^{-1}}$.

The mass outflow rates are tightly correlated with the wind power, which we explain by an ablation-based mass-loss model.

Moreover, the velocity dispersion and the virial parameter of the cloud material can increase by up to one order of magnitude through the effect of the wind.

Even though the wind can suppress or quench star formation for about 1 Myr during the initial interaction, a substantial number of gravitationally bound dense cloudlets manage to shield themselves from the wind's influence and subsequently undergo rapid gravitational collapse, leading to an enhanced star formation rate (SFR).

;Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS.

Accepted 2024 May 16.

Received 2024 May 16; in original form 2024 January 18