Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
1994-12-13
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
13 pages, one figure, LaTeX format. There was an error in the initial submission that was simply an invalid name for the posts
Scientific paper
10.1086/309661
Probability density functions (pdfs) of $^{13}CO$ emission line centroid (line-of-sight, intensity-weighted average) velocities are presented for several densely sampled molecular clouds as quantitative descriptors of their underlying dynamics. Although some are approximately Gaussian in form, most of the pdfs exhibit relatively broader, often nearly exponential, tails, similar to the pdfs of velocity {\em differences} and {\em derivatives} (but not the velocity field itself) found in experiments and numerical simulations of incompressible turbulence. The broad pdf tails found in the present work are also similar to those found in decades-old measurements of interstellar velocity pdfs using atomic line centroids, and to the excess wing emission recently found in individual molecular line profiles. Some possible interpretations of the observed deviations are briefly discussed, although none of these account for the nearly exponential tails.
Miesch Mark S.
Scalo John M.
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