Cloud–cloud collisions triggering star formation in galaxy simulations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Cloud–cloud collisions (CCCs) are expected to compress gas and trigger star formation. However, it is not well understood how the collisions and the induced star formation affect galactic-scale properties. By developing an on-the-fly algorithm to identify CCCs at each time-step in a galaxy simulation and a model that relates CCC-triggered star formation to collision speeds, we perform simulations of isolated galaxies to study the evolution of galaxies and giant molecular clouds (GMCs) with prescriptions of self-consistent CCC-driven star formation and stellar feedback. We find that the simulation with the CCC-triggered star formation produces slightly higher star formation rates and a steeper Kennicutt–Schmidt relation than that with a more standard star formation recipe, although collision speeds and frequencies are insensitive to the star formation models. In the simulation with the CCC model, about $70{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of the stars are born via CCCs, and colliding GMCs with masses of $\approx 10^{5.5}\, \mbox{$\rm M_{\odot}$}$ are the main drivers of CCC-driven star formation. In the simulation with the standard star formation recipe, about 50 per cent of stars are born in colliding GMCs even without the CCC-triggered star formation model. These results suggest that CCCs may be one of the most important star formation processes in galaxy evolution. Furthermore, we find that a post-processing analysis of CCCs, as used in previous studies in galaxy simulations, may lead to slightly greater collision speeds and significantly lower collision frequencies than the on-the-fly analysis.