Related papers: Nonlinear Hydromagnetic Wave Support of a Stratifi…
Hydrodynamic stability has been a longstanding issue for the cloud model of the broad line region in active galactic nuclei. We argue that the clouds may be gravitationally bound to the supermassive black hole. If true, stabilisation by…
This review summarizes the argument for molecular clouds being dominated by turbulence, most likely super-Alfvenic turbulence. Five lines of observational evidence are given: molecular linewidths and line shapes, nonequilibrium chemical…
In the presence of a strong uniform magnetic field, we study the influence of space noncommutativity on the electromagnetic waves propagating through a quasi-static homogeneous plasma. In this treatment, we have adopted a physical model…
Astrophysical turbulence is magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) in its nature. We discuss fundamental properties of MHD turbulence. In particular, we discuss the generation of compressible MHD waves by Alfvenic turbulence and show that this process…
We have derived the full set of MHD equations for incompressible shear flow of a magnetized fluid and considered their solution in the wave-vector space. The linearized equations give the famous amplification of slow magnetosonic waves and…
The solar wind is a magnetized and turbulent plasma. Its turbulence is often dominated by Alfv\'enic fluctuations and often deemed as nearly incompressible far away from the Sun, as shown by in-situ measurements near 1AU. However, for solar…
It is generally believed that turbulence has a significant impact on the dynamics and evolution of molecular clouds and the star formation which occurs within them. Non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects are known to influence the nature of…
We simulate incompressible MHD turbulence in the presence of a strong background magnetic field. Our major conclusions are: 1) MHD turbulence is most conveniently described in terms of counter propagating shear Alfven and slow waves. Shear…
We present a direct numerical and analytical study of driven supersonic MHD turbulence that is believed to govern the dynamics of star-forming molecular clouds. We describe statistical properties of the turbulence by measuring the velocity…
We analyze 3D numerical simulations of driven incompressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in a periodic box threaded by a moderately strong external magnetic field. We sum over nonlinear interactions within Fourier wavebands and…
Two dimensional compressible magneto-hydrodynamical (MHD) simulations run for 20 crossing times on a 800x640 grid with two stable thermal states show persistent hierarchical density structures and Kolmogorov turbulent motions in the…
We discuss HD and MHD compressible turbulence as a cloud-forming and cloud-structuring mechanism in the ISM. Results from a numerical model of the turbulent ISM at large scales suggest that the phase-like appearance of the medium, the…
We present numerical simulations and explore scalings and anisotropy of compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. Our study covers both gas pressure dominated (high beta) and magnetically dominated (low beta) plasmas at different…
We use three-dimensional simulations to study the statistics of supersonic turbulence in molecular clouds. Our numerical experiments describe driven turbulent flows with an isothermal equation of state, Mach numbers around 10, and various…
We analyze the spectral properties of driven, supersonic compressible magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence obtained via high-resolution numerical experiments, for application to understanding the dynamics of giant molecular clouds. Via…
Observations of molecular clouds show the existence of starless, dense cores, threaded by magnetic fields. Observed line widths indicate these dense condensates to be embedded in a supersonically turbulent environment. Under these…
The magnetic energy of nonlinear Alfven waves in compressible plasmas may be ponderomotively coupled only to ion-acoustic quasi-modes which modulate the wave phase velocity and cause wave-front steepening. In the collisionless plasma with…
Supersonic random motions are observed in dark clouds and are traditionally interpreted as Alfven waves, but the possibility that these motions are super-Alfvenic has not been ruled out. In this work we report the results of numerical…
We (Li et al. 2009; Paper-I) compared the magnetic field directions inferred from polarimetry data obtained from 100-pc scale inter-cloud media (ICM) and from sub-pc scale molecular cloud cores. The highly correlated result led us to…
The magnetic field strength in molecular clouds is a fundamental quantity for theories of star formation. It is estimated by Zeeman splitting measurements in a few dense molecular cores, but its volume--averaged value within large molecular…