Gas Condensation in the Galactic Halo
  Using adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) hydrodynamic simulations of vertically
stratified hot halo gas, we examine the conditions under which clouds can form
and condense out of the hot halo medium to potentially fuel star formation in
the gaseous disk. We find that halo clouds do not develop from linear isobaric
perturbations. This is a regime where the cooling time is longer than the
Brunt-Vaisala time, confirming previous linear analysis. We extend the analysis
into the nonlinear regime by considering mildly or strongly nonlinear
perturbations with overdensities up to 100, also varying the initial height,
the cloud size, and the metallicity of the gas. Here, the result depends on the
ratio of cooling time to the time required to accelerate the cloud to the sound
speed (similar to the dynamical time). If the ratio exceeds a critical value
near unity, the cloud is accelerated without further cooling and gets disrupted
by Kelvin-Helmholtz and/or Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. If it is less than
the critical value, the cloud cools and condenses before disruption. Accreting
gas with overdensities of 10-20 is expected to be marginally unstable; the
cooling fraction will depend on the metallicity, the size of the incoming
cloud, and the distance to the galaxy. Locally enhanced overdensities within
cold streams have a higher likelihood of cooling out. Our results have
implications on the evolution of clouds seeded by cold accretion that are
barely resolved in current cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and absorption
line systems detected in galaxy halos.
