Related papers: Multi log-normal density structure in Cygnus-X mol…
This paper gives a new way to diagnose the star-forming potential of a molecular cloud region from the probability density function of its column density (N-pdf). It gives expressions for the column density and mass profiles of a symmetric…
Volume and column density PDFs in molecular clouds are important diagnostics for understanding their general structure. We developed a novel approach to trace the cloud structure by varying the lower PDF cut-off and exploring a suggested…
The structure of molecular clouds can be characterized with the probability distribution function (PDF) of the mass surface density. In particular, the properties of the distribution can reveal the nature of the turbulence and star…
We characterize the column density probability distributions functions (PDFs) of the atomic hydrogen gas, HI, associated with seven Galactic molecular clouds (MCs). We use 21 cm observations from the Leiden/Argentine/Bonn Galactic HI Survey…
In recent decades, significant attention has been dedicated to analytical and observational studies of the atomic hydrogen (HI) to molecular hydrogen (H2) transition in the interstellar medium. We focussed on the Draco diffuse cloud to gain…
We aim to develop a new method to infer the sub-beam probability density function (PDF) of H2 column densities and the dense gas mass within molecular clouds using spatially unresolved observations of molecular emission lines in the 3 mm…
We present a method to derive the density scaling relation $\langle n\rangle \propto L^{-\alpha}$ in regions of star formation or in their turbulent vicinities from straightforward binning of the column-density distribution ($N$-pdf). The…
The probability distribution functions (PDFs) for atomic, molecular, and total gas surface densities of M33 are determined at a resolution of about 50~pc over regions that share coherent morphological properties to unveil fingerprints of…
We compare the structure of star-forming molecular clouds in different regions of Orion A to determine how the column density probability distribution function (N-PDF) varies with environmental conditions such as the fraction of young…
We show that the inter-cloud Larson scaling relation between mean volume density and size $\rho\propto R^{-1}$, which in turn implies that mass $M\propto R^2$, or that the column density $N$ is constant, is an artifact of the observational…
We quantitatively study the probability distribution function (PDF) of cosmological nonlinear density fluctuations from N-body simulations with Gaussian initial condition. In particular, we examine the validity and limitations of one-point…
(Abridged) We discuss the probability distribution function (PDF) of column density resulting from density fields with lognormal PDFs, applicable to isothermal gas (e.g., probably molecular clouds). We suggest that a ``decorrelation…
The probability distribution function (PDF) of the mass surface density of molecular clouds provides essential information about the structure of molecular cloud gas and condensed structures out of which stars may form. In general, the PDF…
The total mass estimate of molecular clouds suffers from the uncertainty in the H$_2$-CO conversion factor, the so-called $X_{\rm CO}$ factor, which is used to convert the $^{12}$CO (1--0) integrated intensity to the H$_2$ column density.…
I present high-resolution column density maps of two molecular clouds having strikingly different star formation rates. To better understand the unusual, massive G216-2.5, a molecular cloud with no massive star formation, the distribution…
We use a suite of 3D simulations of star-forming molecular clouds, with and without stellar feedback and magnetic fields, to investigate the effectiveness of different fitting methods for volume and column density probability distribution…
We analyse column density and temperature maps derived from Herschel dust continuum observations of a sample of massive infrared dark clouds (G11.11-0.12, G18.82-0.28, G28.37+0.07, G28.53-0.25). We disentangle the velocity structure of the…
Star formation in molecular clouds is intimately linked to their internal mass distribution. We present an unprecedentedly detailed analysis of the column density structure of a high-mass, filamentary molecular cloud, namely IRDC…
We conduct numerical experiments to determine the density probability distribution function (PDF) produced in supersonic, isothermal, self-gravitating turbulence of the sort that is ubiquitous in star-forming molecular clouds. Our…
A key parameter to the description of all star formation processes is the density structure of the gas. In this letter, we make use of probability distribution functions (PDFs) of Herschel column density maps of Orion B, Aquila, and…