Abstract
Recent Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations of the extragalactic radio source Centaurus A (Cen A) display a young stellar population around the southwest tip of the inner filament 8.5 kpc from the galactic center of Cen A, with ages in the range 1-3 Myr. Crockett et al. have argued that the transverse bow shock of the Cen A jet triggered this star formation as it impacted dense molecular cores of clouds in the filament. To test this hypothesis, we perform three-dimensional numerical simulations of star formation induced by the jet bow shock in the inner filament of Cen A, using a positivity-preserving, weighted, essentially non-oscillatory method to solve the equations of gas dynamics with radiative cooling. We find that star clusters form inside a bow-shocked molecular cloud when the maximum initial density of the cloud is H2 molecules cm-3. In a typical molecular cloud of mass and diameter 200 pc, approximately 20 star clusters of mass are formed, matching the HST images.
Original language | English (US) |
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Article number | 232 |
Journal | Astrophysical Journal |
Volume | 835 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 1 2017 |
Keywords
- galaxies: active
- galaxies: jets
- galaxies: star formation
- methods: numerical
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Astronomy and Astrophysics
- Space and Planetary Science