Signs and Statistics of Turbulence in the Orion KL Masers

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Scientific paper

The Ori-KL region of active star formation provides an exceptional setting for verifying the hypothesis that newly born stars turbulize their surroundings and that molecular masers could serve as probes of the geometrical structure and the velocity field of this supersonic turbulence. We present results of a statistical study of OH and H2O masers in this region, using published results of interferometric mapping of the masers. The statistical properties of OH and H2O masers in Ori-KL are found to be quite similar to one another. Making allowances for the paucity of statistics, we suggest that there are signs both of fractality in the geometrical structure of OH and H2O masers, with a low fractal dimension ( 1), and of a power law adherence in the velocity structure functions. At larger scales, the power index of the first-order structure function is typically close to its classical (Kolmogorov) value (1/3) for incompressible turbulence, with a steepening at smaller scales. For H2O masers in Ori-KL (and several other star-forming regions), the dependence of the power indices of the velocity structure functions on the order of the function also demonstrates a tendency toward the classical Kolmogorov prediction for incompressible turbulence. These results suggest that strong supersonic turbulence accompanies mass outflows from newly born stars in Ori-KL and elsewhere; that this turbulence is highly intermittent; and that the dissipation of turbulent energy at larger scales is relatively small, regardless of the highly supersonic nature of turbulence. This project was supported by the NSF/REU grant AST-0354056 and the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association.

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