2001/08/31 by Stanislav Boldyrev · 10 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Optical properties and cooling technologies in crystalline materials #Statistical Mechanics and Entropy #astro-ph #cond-mat #nlin.CD #physics.flu-dyn
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/339403
published as ApJ 569(2), 841 (2002) · revised, new material added, 8 pages
arxiv created 2001/10/23 · openalex publication_date 2002/04/20 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
The process of star formation in interstellar molecular clouds is believed to be controlled by driven supersonic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We suggest that in the inertial range, such turbulence obeys the Kolmogorov law, while in the dissipative range, it behaves as Burgers turbulence developing shock singularities. On the base of the She-Lévêque analytical model, we then predict the velocity power spectrum in the inertial range to be E k ~ k -1.74 . This result agrees well with recent numerical findings by Padoan & Nordlund and reproduces the observational Larson law ⟨ u ⟩ ~ l 0.74...0.76 . The application of the model to more general dissipative structures with higher fractal dimensionality is discussed.