Scaling relations of supersonic turbulence in star-forming molecular clouds

Details Scaling relations of supersonic turbulence in star-forming molecular clouds Scaling relations of supersonic turbulence in star-forming molecular clouds

2001-11-19

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0111345v1

Astrophys.J.573:678-684,2002

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

17 pages, 6 figures included

Scientific paper

10.1086/340758

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 difference structure functions up to the fifth order. In particular, the velocity power spectrum in the inertial range is found to be close to E(k) \~ k^{-1.74}, and the velocity difference scales as <|\Delta u|>~ L^{0.42}. The results agree well with the Kolmogorov--Burgers analytical model suggested for supersonic turbulence in [astro-ph/0108300]. We then generalize the model to more realistic, fractal structure of molecular clouds, and show that depending on the fractal dimension of a given molecular cloud, the theoretical value for the velocity spectrum spans the interval [-1.74 ... -1.89], while the corresponding window for the velocity difference scaling exponent is [0.42 ... 0.78].

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