On the Density Distribution in Star-forming Interstellar Clouds
Astrophysics of Galaxies
2011-01-05 v3
Abstract
We use deep adaptive mesh refinement simulations of isothermal self-gravitating supersonic turbulence to study the imprints of gravity on the mass density distribution in molecular clouds. The simulations show that the density distribution in self-gravitating clouds develops an extended power-law tail at high densities on top of the usual lognormal. We associate the origin of the tail with self-similar collapse solutions and predict the power index values in the range from -7/4 to -3/2 that agree with both simulations and observations of star-forming molecular clouds.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1007.2950,
title = {On the Density Distribution in Star-forming Interstellar Clouds},
author = {Alexei G. Kritsuk and Michael L. Norman and Rick Wagner},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1007.2950},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
5 pages, 3 color figures; published version