Shock-triggered formation of magnetically dominated clouds – II. Weak shock–cloud interaction in three dimensions

To understand the formation of a magnetically dominated molecular cloud from an atomic cloud, we study the interaction of a weak, radiative shock with a magnetized cloud. The thermally stable warm atomic cloud is initially in static equilibrium with the surrounding hot ionized gas. A shock propagating through the hot medium then interacts with the cloud. We follow the dynamical evolution of the shocked cloud with a time-dependent ideal magnetohydrodynamic code. By performing the simulations in 3D, we investigate the effect of different magnetic field orientations including parallel, perpendicular and oblique to the shock normal. We find that the angle between the shock normal and the magnetic field must be small to produce clouds with properties similar to observed molecular clouds.