Linear Stability of Self-Similar Flow: 5. Convective Instability in Bounded Uniform Self-Gravitating Spheres.
Abstract
A new type of instability, similar to thermal convective instabilities, has been found to occur in self-gravitating spherical clouds uniformily expanding or collapsing in a vacuum. Unlike the Jeans instability, it has a growth rate which increases with zonal mode number 1, so that objects of arbitrarily small size are unstable. The modes are compressional and have non-vanishing vorticity. The eigenfunctions peak at the boundary, so the perturbations develop predominantly into surface irregularities. The perturbation amplitudes grow algebraically at first, then at late times become proportional to the cloud radius R(t). For a collapsing system in which stars are produced by the condensation of diffuse matter the theory predicts fragmentation and enhanced condensation in the peripheral regions. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 06, 1979
- Accession Number
- ADA070709
Entities
People
- David L. Book
- Ira B. Bernstein
Organizations
- United States Naval Research Laboratory