Interstellar Turbulence I: Observations and Processes

By Bruce G. Elmegreen, John A. Center, D. O. Astronomy, U. Texas. 2004

961 citations recorded by the source corpus.

▪ Abstract Turbulence affects the structure and motions of nearly all temperature and density regimes in the interstellar gas. This two-part review summarizes the observations, theory, and simulations of interstellar turbulence and their implications for many fields of astrophysics. The first part begins with diagnostics for turbulence that have been applied to the cool interstellar medium and highlights their main results. The energy sources for interstellar turbulence are then summarized along with numerical estimates for their power input. Supernovae and superbubbles dominate the total power, but many other sources spanning a large range of scales, from swing-amplified gravitational instabilities to cosmic ray streaming, all contribute in some way. Turbulence theory is considered in detail, including the basic fluid equations, solenoidal and compressible modes, global inviscid quadratic invariants, scaling arguments for the power spectrum, phenomenological models for the scaling of higher-order structu...

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e5fdbbea12a4ac7c6bbf32edd4716bea0022bb5a

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Citations in the corpus

TADPOL: A 1.3 mm SURVEY OF DUST POLARIZATION IN STAR-FORMING CORES AND REGIONS (2013, background): “It is evident from our maps that at these scales the B-fields in the SFRs have been twisted, most likely by dynamic processes, as high-mass SFRs are known to be highly turbulent (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004).”
The Resolved Properties of Extragalactic Giant Molecular Clouds (2008, background): “…molecular clouds in the Milky Way find that GMCs are in approximate virial equilibrium and obey scaling relations, commonly known as Larson laws (Larson 1981), that have their origin in the character of the turbulence in the interstellar medium (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004; McKee & Ostriker 2007).”
The influence of gas on the structure of merger remnants (2006, neutral): “The question of how stars form and how stellar energetic feedback or central black hole heating affect the multi-phase interstellar medium is still poorly understood (for a summary see e.g. Elmegreen & Scalo 2004), leading to large uncertainties in models of galaxy formation and evolution.”
THE FRACTAL DENSITY STRUCTURE IN SUPERSONIC ISOTHERMAL TURBULENCE: SOLENOIDAL VERSUS COMPRESSIVE ENERGY INJECTION (2007, background): “…production in real MCs is expected to be far more complex compared to what we can model with the present simulations, probably consisting of a convolution of various agents producing turbulence, and mixtures of solenoidal and compressive modes (e.g., Elmegreen & Scalo 2004; Mac Low & Klessen 2004).”
The density variance–Mach number relation in supersonic turbulence – I. Isothermal, magnetized gas (2012, background): “In this framework, supersonic turbulence plays a fundamental role in determining the density and velocity statistics of the interstellar medium (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004; McKee & Ostriker 2007) and controls stellar birth (Mac Low & Klessen 2004).”
On the Hydrodynamic Interaction of Shock Waves with Interstellar Clouds. II. The Effect of Smooth Cloud Boundaries on Cloud Destruction and Cloud Turbulence (2005, background): “Many numerical studies show that interstellar turbulent motions dissipate in a dynamical time, L/ v, where L is the size of the region (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004).”
Accretion-driven turbulence as universal process: galaxies, molecular clouds, and protostellar disks (2009, background): “Several possibilities have been discussed (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004; Mac Low & Klessen 2004; Scalo & Elmegreen 2004).”
The local dark matter density (2014, background): “This is because typically un-modelled physical process in the interstellar medium, like supernovae, cosmic ray radiation, gas turbulence and magnetic fields, contribute an effective Pgas,eff that is not included in equation 59 (e.g. Elmegreen & Scalo, 2004).”
Powerful High-Velocity Dispersion Molecular Hydrogen Associated with an Intergalactic Shock Wave in Stephan’s Quintet (2006, background): “…g. Dopita 2003), while still allowing a fraction of the mechanical energy to cascade down to smaller and smaller scales (as in the Galactic ISM e. g. McKee, Chernoff & Hollenbach 1984; Elmegreen & Scalo 2004), where shock-speeds would be lower and molecules could re-form in the post-shocked medium.”
The Statistics of Supersonic Isothermal Turbulence (2007, background): “…and the velocity dispersion tightly correlate with the cloud size.2 Supported by other independent observational facts indicating scale invariance, these relationships are often interpreted in terms of supersonic turbulence with characte - istic Reynolds numbersRe∼108 (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004).”
Importance of the Initial Conditions for Star Formation - I. Cloud Evolution and Morphology (2010, background): “1 I N T RO D U C T I O N The current paradigm of present-day star formation suggests that stars are born in molecular clouds, permeated by supersonic turbulence (Elmegreen & Scalo 2004; Mac Low & Klessen 2004; Ballesteros-Paredes et al. 2007).”
Wave turbulence in incompressible Hall magnetohydrodynamics (2006, background): “et al, 2004) or impulsive magnetic reconnection (see e.g. Bhattacharjee, 2004). Small scale turbulence is also a key issue in a number of problems from the interstellar medium (see the review made by [32], and, [95]), to solar physics (see e.g. , [85]), magnetospheric physics (see e.g. the recent pa”
The formation of molecular clouds in spiral galaxies (2006, background): “The properties of molecular clouds include significant structure on all observed scales and supersonic bulk motions that follow the relation σv ∝ R1/2 (Myers 1983; Dame et al. 1986; Brunt 2003; Elmegreen & Scalo 2004).”
A NEW JEANS RESOLUTION CRITERION FOR (M)HD SIMULATIONS OF SELF-GRAVITATING GAS: APPLICATION TO MAGNETIC FIELD AMPLIFICATION BY GRAVITY-DRIVEN TURBULENCE (2011, background): “Despite its ubiquity and importance for star formation (Mac Low & Klessen 2004; Elmegreen & Scalo 2004; McKee & Ostriker 2007), only very little is known about the origin of astrophysical turbulence and magnetic fields.”
Modeling UV Radiation Feedback from Massive Stars. II. Dispersal of Star-forming Giant Molecular Clouds by Photoionization and Radiation Pressure (2018, background): “This radiation pressure force alters the internal structure of H II regions surrounding newborn luminous clusters (Draine 2011) and helps to expel the gas from GMCs.”
Protostellar Turbulence Driven by Collimated Outflows (2007, methodology): “A well recognized problem with driving in Fourier space is that it affects the gas in the entire computation box simultaneously (e.g., Elmegreen & Scalo 2004).”
A General Theory of Turbulence-regulated Star Formation, from Spirals to Ultraluminous Infrared Galaxies (2005, background): “In a cloud supported against collapse by supersonic turbulence, at any given time most of the mass should be in structures that are insufficiently dense to collapse (see reviews by Mac Low &Klessen 2004; Elmegreen & Scalo 2004).”
The Relationship between Molecular Gas Tracers and Kennicutt-Schmidt Laws (2007, background): “…evidence that densities in molecular clouds follow a lognormal probability distribution function (PDF; see reviews by Mac Low & Klessen 2004 and Elmegreen & Scalo 2004) dp d lnx = 1√ 2πσ2 exp [ − (lnx − lnx) 2 2σ2 ] , (1) where x = n/n is the molecular hydrogen number density n relative to the…”
Science with ASKAP (2008, background): “There is little doubt that interstellar turbulence plays a significant role in the structure, kinematics and global evolution of the ISM (see review papers by [89] and [235]).”