1996/08/30 by H. J. de Vega, N. Sánchez, F. Combes · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Classical mechanics #Energy cascade #Fractal #Fractal dimension #Galaxy #Gravitation #Gravitational field #Interstellar cloud #Interstellar medium #Mechanics #Molecular cloud #Physics #Scientific Research and Discoveries #Stars #Statistical physics #Turbulence #astro-ph #cond-mat #gr-qc #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/383056a0
Latex file, four pages and two colour figures in .cps files. To appear in Nature, 5 September 1996
arxiv created 1996/08/30 · openalex publication_date 1996/09/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · arxiv updated 2016/08/30 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
The gas clouds of the interstellar medium have a fractal structure, the origin of which has generally been thought to lie in turbulence. The energy of turbulence could come from galactic rotation at large-scale, then cascade down to be dissipated on small-scales by viscosity; it has been suggested that such turbulence helps to prevent massive molecular clouds from collapsing in response to their own gravity. Here we show that, on the contrary, self-gravity itself may be the dominant factor in making clouds fractal. We develop a field-theory approach to the structure of clouds, assuming them to be isothermal, and with only gravitational interactions; we find that the observed fractal dimension of the clouds arise naturally from this approach. Although this result does not imply that turbulence is not important, it does demonstrate that the fractal structure can be understood without it.