English

Observational Determination of the Turbulent Ambipolar Diffusion Scale and Magnetic Field Strength in Molecular Clouds

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2019-01-30 v2

Abstract

We study the correlation of the velocity dispersion of the coexisting molecules H13CN and H13CO+ and the turbulent energy dissipation scale in the DR21(OH) star-forming region. The down-shift of the H13CO+ spectrum relative to H13CN is consistent with the presence of ambipolar diffusion at dissipation length scales that helps the process of turbulent energy dissipation, but at a different cut-off for ions compared to the neutrals. We use our observational data to calculate a turbulent ambipolar diffusion length scale L'\simeq17 mpc and a strength of B_{pos}\simeq1.7 mG for the plane of the sky component of the magnetic field in DR21(OH).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1007.2242,
  title  = {Observational Determination of the Turbulent Ambipolar Diffusion Scale and Magnetic Field Strength in Molecular Clouds},
  author = {Talayeh Hezareh and Martin Houde and Carolyn McCoey and Hua-bai Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.2242},
  year   = {2019}
}