2017MNRAS.471.4476D

We study the photoevaporation of molecular clumps exposed to a UV radiation field including hydrogen-ionizing photons (hν > 13.6 eV) produced by massive stars or quasars. We follow the propagation and collision of shock waves inside clumps and take into account self-shielding effects, determining the evolution of clump size and density with time. The structure of the ionization-photodissociation region is obtained for different initial clump masses (M = 0.01-10⁴ M_☉) and impinging fluxes (G₀ = 10²-10⁵ in units of the Habing flux). The cases of molecular clumps engulfed in the H II region of an OB star and clumps carried within quasar outflows are treated separately. We find that the clump undergoes in both cases an initial shock-contraction phase and a following expansion phase, which lets the radiation penetrate in until the clump is completely evaporated. Typical evaporation time-scales are ≃0.01 Myr in the stellar case and 0.1 Myr in the quasar case, where the clump mass is 0.1 M_☉ and 10³ M_☉, respectively. We find that clump lifetimes in quasar outflows are compatible with their observed extension, suggesting that photoevaporation is the main mechanism regulating the size of molecular outflows.