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Related papers: Shock generated vorticity in the interstellar medi…

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Context. Turbulence is a key component of molecular cloud structure. It is usually described by a cascade of energy down to the dissipation scale. The power spectrum for subsonic incompressible turbulence is $k^{-5/3}$, while for supersonic…

Supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds is a dominant agent that strongly affects the clouds' evolution and star formation activity. Turbulence may be initiated and maintained by a number of processes, acting at a wide range of physical…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2014-11-20 C. M. Brunt , M. H. Heyer , M. -M. Mac Low

This two-part review summarizes interstellar turbulence and its implications. The first part begins with diagnostics and energy sources. Turbulence theory is considered in detail, including the basic fluid equations, solenoidal and…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Bruce G. Elmegreen , John Scalo

We develop the theory of interstellar scintillation as caused by an irregular plasma having a power-law spatial density spectrum with a spectral exponent of 4 corresponding to a medium with abrupt changes in its density. An ``outer scale''…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-10-31 Hendrik Lambert , Barney Rickett

Galactic cosmic rays are believed to be mostly accelerated at supernova shocks. However, the interstellar magnetic field is too weak to efficiently accelerate galactic cosmic rays up to the highest energies, i.e. $10^{15}$ eV. A stronger…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2016-03-16 Maria Victoria del Valle , Alexandre Lazarian , Reinaldo Santos-Lima

We review recent results from numerical simulations and related models of MHD turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM) and in molecular clouds. We discuss the implications of turbulence for the processes of cloud formation and evolution,…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 E. Vazquez-Semadeni , E. C. Ostriker , T. Passot , C. F. Gammie , J. M. Stone

The cold diffuse interstellar medium must harbor pockets of hot gas to produce the large observed abundances of molecular species, the formation of which require much more energy than available in the bulk of its volume. These hot spots…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 J. Pety , E. Falgarone

(Abridged) The formation of molecular clouds (MCs) from the diffuse interstellar gas appears to be a necessary step for star formation, as young stars invariably occur within them. However, the mechanisms controlling the formation of MCs…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-11-26 P. Hennebelle , M. -M. Mac Low , E. Vazquez-Semadeni

We use $^{12}$CO (J=1-0) MWISP data to study turbulence in a segment of the Local Arm. Velocity slices at different kinematic distances show similar spatial power spectra (SPSs) and structure functions (SFs), demonstrating that the entire…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2025-11-18 Yuehui Ma , Miaomiao Zhang , Hongchi Wang , Xuepeng Chen , Zhenyi Yue , Suziye He , Xiangyu Ou , Li Sun

Supernova explosions inject a considerable amount of energy into the interstellar medium (ISM) in regions with high to moderate star formation rates. In order to assess whether the driving of turbulence by supernovae is also important in…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2015-05-13 Sami Dib , C. Jakob Walcher , Mark Heyer , Edouard Audit , Laurent Loinard

We investigate the form of the one-point probability distribution function (pdf) for the density field of the interstellar medium using numerical simulations that successively reduce the number of physical processes included.…

Astrophysics · Physics 2014-10-13 J. Scalo , E. Vazquez-Semadeni , D. Chappell , T. Passot

Here we present a simple, but nevertheless, instructive model for the star formation efficiency in turbulent molecular clouds. The model is based on the assumption of log-normal density distribution which reflects the turbulent nature of…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2014-09-29 Robi Banerjee

The spatial power spectrum of the HI 21 cm intensity in the Small Magellanic Cloud (Stanimirovic et al 1999) is a power law over scales as large as those of the SMC itself. It was interpreted as due to turbulence by Goldman (2000) and by…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Itzhak Goldman

We examine observational characteristics of multi-phase turbulent flows in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) using a synthetic radiation field of atomic and molecular lines. We consider the multi-phase ISM which is formed by thermal…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 M. Yamada , H. Koyama , K. Omukai , S. Inutsuka

We used magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of interstellar turbulence to study the probability distribution functions (PDFs) of increments of density, velocity, and magnetic field. We found that the PDFs are well described by a Tsallis…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2011-08-04 A. Esquivel , A. Lazarian

We re-analyze the data of the BU-FCRAO $^{13}{\rm CO}$ Galactic Ring Survey (GRS) to understand the dynamics of the turbulent molecular interstellar medium. We define molecular clouds by their spatial half-power contours of $^{13}{\rm CO}$…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2026-03-09 Eric Keto

In this work, we explore the link between star formation, turbulence and the thermal state of the multi-phase ISM. We analyse a suite of stratified box simulations modelling a realistic ISM that aims to probe environments similar to those…

Super-sonic turbulence fragments molecular clouds (MC) into a very complex density field with density contrasts of several orders of magnitude. A fraction of the gas is locked into dense and gravitationally bound cores, which collapse as…

Astrophysics · Physics 2007-05-23 Paolo Padoan , AAke Nordlund , Ornolfur Einar Rognvaldsson , Alyssa Goodman

Supernova (SN) blast waves inject energy and momentum into the interstellar medium (ISM), control its turbulent multiphase structure and the launching of galactic outflows. Accurate modelling of the blast wave evolution is therefore…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-05-25 Sebastian Haid , Stefanie Walch , Thorsten Naab , Daniel Seifried , Jonathan Mackey , Andrea Gatto

We investigate the interplay between the ionization radiation from massive stars and the turbulence inside the surrounding molecular gas thanks to 3D numerical simulations. We used the 3D hydrodynamical code HERACLES to model an initial…

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-05 P. Tremblin , E. Audit , V. Minier , W. Schmidt , N. Schneider