Radiation feedback in dusty clouds

Abstract

We have investigated the impact of photoionization and radiation pressure on a dusty star-forming cloud using one-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic simulations, which include absorption and re-emission of photons by dust. We find that, in a cloud of mass 10^5 Msun and radius 17 pc, the effect of radiation pressure is negligible when star formation efficiency is 2%. The importance of radiation pressure increases with increasing star formation efficiency or an increasing dust-to-gas mass ratio. The net effect of radiation feedback, however, becomes smaller with the increasing dust-to-gas mass ratio, since the absorption of ultra-violet photons by dust grains suppresses photoionization and hence photoheating.