2006/08/01 by Mark H. Heyer, M. H. Heyer, C. Brunt +1
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Physical and Chemical Molecular Interactions #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Interstellar cloud #Interstellar medium #Molecular cloud #Optical properties and cooling technologies in crystalline materials #Scaling #Supersonic speed #Turbulence #Universality (dynamical systems) #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1743921307001159
published in Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union 2(S237), 9-16 (Cambridge University Press) · 6 pages, 3 postscript figures, invited talk in IAU Symposium 237, "Triggered Star Formation in a Turbulent ISM", 14-18 August, Prague, Czech Republic, eds. B. Elmegreen & J. Palous
openalex publication_date 2006/08/01 · arxiv created 2006/11/15 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract The observational record of turbulence within the molecular gas phase of the interstellar medium is summarized. We briefly review the analysis methods used to recover the velocity structure function from spectroscopic imaging and the application of these tools on sets of cloud data. These studies identify a near-invariant velocity structure function that is independent of the local environment and star formation activity. Such universality accounts for the cloud-to-cloud scaling law between the global line-width and size of molecular clouds found by Larson (1981) and constrains the degree to which supersonic turbulence can regulate star formation. In addition, the evidence for large scale driving sources necessary to sustain supersonic flows is summarized.