Expansion of Dusty H II Regions and Its Impact on Disruption of Molecular Clouds

Dynamical expansion of H II regions plays a key role in dispersing surrounding gas and therefore in limiting the efficiency of star formation in molecular clouds. We use analytic methods and numerical simulations to explore expansions of spherical dusty H II regions, taking into account the effects of direct radiation pressure, gas pressure, and total gravity of the gas and stars. Simulations show that the structure of the ionized zone closely follows Draine (2011)'s static equilibrium model in which radiation pressure acting on gas and dust grains balances the gas pressure gradient. Strong radiation pressure creates a central cavity and a compressed shell at the ionized boundary. We analytically solve for the temporal evolution of a thin shell, finding a good agreement with the numerical experiments. We estimate the minimum star formation efficiency required for a cloud of given mass and size to be destroyed by an HII region expansion. We find that typical giant molecular clouds in the Milky Way can be destroyed by the gas-pressure driven expansion of an H II region, requiring an efficiency of less than a few percent. On the other hand, more dense cluster-forming clouds in starburst environments can be destroyed by the radiation pressure driven expansion, with an efficiency of more than ~30 percent that increases with the mean surface density, independent of the total (gas+stars) mass. The time scale of the expansion is always smaller than the dynamical time scale of the cloud, suggesting that H II regions are likely to be a dominant feedback process in protoclusters before supernova explosions occurs.