Radiation Hydrodynamic Simulations of Dust-Driven Winds
  We study dusty winds driven by radiation pressure in the atmosphere of a
rapidly star-forming environment. We apply the variable Eddington tensor
algorithm to re-examine the two-dimensional radiation hydrodynamic problem of a
column of gas that is accelerated by a constant infrared radiation flux. In the
absence of gravity, the system is primarily characterized by the initial
optical depth of the gas. We perform several runs with different initial
optical depth and resolution. We find that the gas spreads out along the
vertical direction, as its mean velocity and velocity dispersion increase. In
contrast to previous work using flux-limited diffusion algorithm, we find
little evolution in the trapping factor. The momentum coupling between
radiation and gas in the absence of gravity is similar to that with gravity.
For Eddington ratio increasing with the height in the system, the momentum
transfer from the radiation to the gas is not merely $\sim L/c$, but amplified
by a factor of $1+\eta \tau_{\rm IR}$, where $\tau_{\rm IR}$ is the integrated
infrared optical depth through the system, and $\eta\sim0.5-0.9$, decreasing
with the optical depth. We apply our results to the atmosphere of galaxies and
conclude that radiation pressure may be an important mechanism for driving
winds in the most rapidly star-forming galaxies and starbursts.
