The biconical kiloparsec structure generated by nuclear starbursts |
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| Authors: | Guillermo Tenorio-Tagle & Casiana Muñoz-Tuñón |
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| Institution: | Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA,;Royal Greenwich Observatory, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0EZ,;Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, E 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain |
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| Abstract: | Two-dimensional calculations of the hydrodynamics produced by nuclear starbursts, taking into consideration the accretion or infall of disc matter on to the heart of the starburst, are here shown to lead to stationary solutions that naturally account for the kpc-scale biconical X-ray and optically detected filamentary structure. The calculated flows are critically compared with former models and with observations of nuclear starbursts. For the infall models, we find that the mechanical energy power of the nuclear cluster must exceed a threshold value, imposed by the rate of disc mass accretion, to undergo blowout. This, combined with an initial mass function (IMF), is shown to regulate the minimum amount of mass that a starburst needs to generate kpc-scale outflows. |
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| Keywords: | accretion accretion discs hydrodynamics ISM: jets and outflows ISM: structure galaxies: nuclei galaxies: starburst |
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