Radiation magnetohydrodynamics simulation of proto-stellar collapse: Two-component molecular outflow

Abstract

We perform a three-dimensional nested-grid radiation magnetohydrodynamics (RMHD) simulation with self-gravity to study the early phase of the low-mass star formation process from a rotating molecular cloud core to a first adiabatic core just before the second collapse begins. Radiation transfer is implemented with the flux-limited diffusion approximation, operator-splitting, and implicit time integrator. In the RMHD simulation, the outer region of the first core attains a higher entropy and its size is larger than that in the magnetohydrodynamics simulations with the barotropic approximation. Bipolar molecular outflow consisting of two components is driven by magnetic Lorentz force via different mechanisms, and shock heating by the outflow is observed. Using the RMHD simulation we can predict and interpret the observed properties of star-forming clouds, first cores, and outflows with millimeter/submillimeter radio interferometers, especially the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. © 2010. The American Astronomical Society.