158 research outputs found
Turbulent Control of the Star Formation Efficiency
Supersonic turbulence plays a dual role in molecular clouds: On one hand, it
contributes to the global support of the clouds, while on the other it promotes
the formation of small-scale density fluctuations, identifiable with clumps and
cores. Within these, the local Jeans length \Ljc is reduced, and collapse
ensues if \Ljc becomes smaller than the clump size and the magnetic support
is insufficient (i.e., the core is ``magnetically supercritical''); otherwise,
the clumps do not collapse and are expected to re-expand and disperse on a few
free-fall times. This case may correspond to a fraction of the observed
starless cores. The star formation efficiency (SFE, the fraction of the cloud's
mass that ends up in collapsed objects) is smaller than unity because the mass
contained in collapsing clumps is smaller than the total cloud mass. However,
in non-magnetic numerical simulations with realistic Mach numbers and
turbulence driving scales, the SFE is still larger than observational
estimates. The presence of a magnetic field, even if magnetically
supercritical, appears to further reduce the SFE, but by reducing the
probability of core formation rather than by delaying the collapse of
individual cores, as was formerly thought. Precise quantification of these
effects as a function of global cloud parameters is still needed.Comment: Invited review for the conference "IMF@50: the Initial Mass Function
50 Years Later", to be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers, eds. E.
Corbelli, F. Palla, and H. Zinnecke
Interstellar MHD Turbulence and Star Formation
This chapter reviews the nature of turbulence in the Galactic interstellar
medium (ISM) and its connections to the star formation (SF) process. The ISM is
turbulent, magnetized, self-gravitating, and is subject to heating and cooling
processes that control its thermodynamic behavior. The turbulence in the warm
and hot ionized components of the ISM appears to be trans- or subsonic, and
thus to behave nearly incompressibly. However, the neutral warm and cold
components are highly compressible, as a consequence of both thermal
instability in the atomic gas and of moderately-to-strongly supersonic motions
in the roughly isothermal cold atomic and molecular components. Within this
context, we discuss: i) the production and statistical distribution of
turbulent density fluctuations in both isothermal and polytropic media; ii) the
nature of the clumps produced by thermal instability, noting that, contrary to
classical ideas, they in general accrete mass from their environment; iii) the
density-magnetic field correlation (or lack thereof) in turbulent density
fluctuations, as a consequence of the superposition of the different wave modes
in the turbulent flow; iv) the evolution of the mass-to-magnetic flux ratio
(MFR) in density fluctuations as they are built up by dynamic compressions; v)
the formation of cold, dense clouds aided by thermal instability; vi) the
expectation that star-forming molecular clouds are likely to be undergoing
global gravitational contraction, rather than being near equilibrium, and vii)
the regulation of the star formation rate (SFR) in such gravitationally
contracting clouds by stellar feedback which, rather than keeping the clouds
from collapsing, evaporates and diperses them while they collapse.Comment: 43 pages. Invited chapter for the book "Magnetic Fields in Diffuse
Media", edited by Elisabete de Gouveia dal Pino and Alex Lazarian. Revised as
per referee's recommendation
One-Point Probability Distribution Functions of Supersonic Turbulent Flows in Self-Gravitating Media
Turbulence is essential for understanding the structure and dynamics of
molecular clouds and star-forming regions. There is a need for adequate tools
to describe and characterize the properties of turbulent flows. One-point
probability distribution functions (pdf's) of dynamical variables have been
suggested as appropriate statistical measures and applied to several observed
molecular clouds. However, the interpretation of these data requires comparison
with numerical simulations. To address this issue, SPH simulations of driven
and decaying, supersonic, turbulent flows with and without self-gravity are
presented. In addition, random Gaussian velocity fields are analyzed to
estimate the influence of variance effects. To characterize the flow
properties, the pdf's of the density, of the line-of-sight velocity centroids,
and of the line centroid increments are studied. This is supplemented by a
discussion of the dispersion and the kurtosis of the increment pdf's, as well
as the spatial distribution of velocity increments for small spatial lags. From
the comparison between different models of interstellar turbulence, it follows
that the inclusion of self-gravity leads to better agreement with the observed
pdf's in molecular clouds. The increment pdf's for small spatial lags become
exponential for all considered velocities. However, all the processes
considered here lead to non-Gaussian signatures, differences are only gradual,
and the analyzed pdf's are in addition projection dependent. It appears
therefore very difficult to distinguish between different physical processes on
the basis of pdf's only, which limits their applicability for adequately
characterizing interstellar turbulence.Comment: 38 pages (incl. 17 figures), accepted for publication in ApJ, also
available with full resolution figures at
http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~klessen/Preprint
Spin fluctuations in the stacked-triangular antiferromagnet YMnO3
The spectrum of spin fluctuations in the stacked-triangular antiferromagnet
YMnO3 was studied above the Neel temperature using both unpolarized and
polarized inelastic neutron scattering. We find an in-plane and an out-of-plane
excitation. The in-plane mode has two components just above TN, a
resolution-limited central peak and a Debye-like contribution. The
quasi-elastic fluctuations have a line-width that increases with q like Dq^z
and the dynamical exponent z=2.3. The out-of-plane fluctuations have a gap at
the magnetic zone center and do not show any appreciable q-dependence at small
wave-vectors.Comment: JETP LETTERS, in pres
Weak differentiability of product measures
In this paper, we study cost functions over a finite collection of random variables. For these types of models, a calculus of differentiation is developed that allows us to obtain a closed-form expression for derivatives where "differentiation" has to be understood in the weak sense. The technique for proving the results is new and establishes an interesting link between functional analysis and gradient estimation. The key contribution of this paper is a product rule of weak differentiation. In addition, a product rule of weak analyticity is presented that allows for Taylor series approximations of finite products measures. In particular, from characteristics of the individual probability measures, a lower bound (i.e., domain of convergence) can be established for the set of parameter values for which the Taylor series converges to the true value. Applications of our theory to the ruin problem from insurance mathematics and to stochastic activity networks arising in project evaluation review techniques are provided. © 2010 INFORMS
Spin-Glass State in
Magnetic susceptibility, magnetization, specific heat and positive muon spin
relaxation (\musr) measurements have been used to characterize the magnetic
ground-state of the spinel compound . We observe a spin-glass
transition of the S=1/2 spins below characterized
by a cusp in the susceptibility curve which suppressed when a magnetic field is
applied. We show that the magnetization of depends on the
magnetic histo Well below , the muon signal resembles the dynamical
Kubo-Toyabe expression reflecting that the spin freezing process in results Gaussian distribution of the magnetic moments. By means of
Monte-Carlo simulati we obtain the relevant exchange integrals between the spins in this compound.Comment: 6 pages, 16 figure
The <i>Herschel</i> view of the massive star-forming region NGC 6334
Aims: Fundamental to any theory of high-mass star formation are gravity and turbulence. Their relative importance, which probably changes during cloud evolution, is not known. By investigating the spatial and density structure of the high-mass star-forming complex NGC 6334 we aim to disentangle the contributions of turbulence and gravity.
Methods: We used Herschel PACS and SPIRE imaging observations from the HOBYS key programme at wavelengths of 160, 250, 350, and 500 μm to construct dust temperature and column density maps. Using probability distribution functions (PDFs) of the column density determined for the whole complex and for four distinct sub-regions (distinguished on the basis of differences in the column density, temperature, and radiation field), we characterize the density structure of the complex. We investigate the spatial structure using the Δ-variance, which probes the relative amount of structure on different size scales and traces possible energy injection mechanisms into the molecular cloud.
Results: The Δ-variance analysis suggests that the significant scales of a few parsec that were found are caused by energy injection due to expanding HII regions, which are numerous, and by the lengths of filaments seen everywhere in the complex. The column density PDFs have a lognormal shape at low densities and a clearly defined power law at high densities for all sub-regions whose slope is linked to the exponent α of an equivalent spherical density distribution. In particular with α = 2.37, the central sub-region is largly dominated by gravity, caused by individual collapsing dense cores and global collapse of a larger region. The collapse is faster than free-fall (which would lead only to α = 2) and thus requires a more dynamic scenario (external compression, flows). The column density PDFs suggest that the different sub-regions are at different evolutionary stages, especially the central sub-region, which seems to be in a more evolved stage
Kinetic Energy Decay Rates of Supersonic and Super-Alfvenic Turbulence in Star-Forming Clouds
We present numerical studies of compressible, decaying turbulence, with and
without magnetic fields, with initial rms Alfven and Mach numbers ranging up to
five, and apply the results to the question of the support of star-forming
interstellar clouds of molecular gas. We find that, in 1D, magnetized
turbulence actually decays faster than unmagnetized turbulence. In all the
regimes that we have studied 3D turbulence-super-Alfvenic, supersonic,
sub-Alfvenic, and subsonic-the kinetic energy decays as (t-t0)^(-x), with 0.85
< x < 1.2. We compared results from two entirely different algorithms in the
unmagnetized case, and have performed extensive resolution studies in all
cases, reaching resolutions of 256^3 zones or 350,000 particles. We conclude
that the observed long lifetimes and supersonic motions in molecular clouds
must be due to external driving, as undriven turbulence decays far too fast to
explain the observations.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters, 29 Nov. 1997. 10 pages, 2 figures,
also available from http://www.mpia-hd.mpg.de/theory/preprints.html#maclo
Submillimeter Studies of Prestellar Cores and Protostars: Probing the Initial Conditions for Protostellar Collapse
Improving our understanding of the initial conditions and earliest stages of
protostellar collapse is crucial to gain insight into the origin of stellar
masses, multiple systems, and protoplanetary disks. Observationally, there are
two complementary approaches to this problem: (1) studying the structure and
kinematics of prestellar cores observed prior to protostar formation, and (2)
studying the structure of young (e.g. Class 0) accreting protostars observed
soon after point mass formation. We discuss recent advances made in this area
thanks to (sub)millimeter mapping observations with large single-dish
telescopes and interferometers. In particular, we argue that the beginning of
protostellar collapse is much more violent in cluster-forming clouds than in
regions of distributed star formation. Major breakthroughs are expected in this
field from future large submillimeter instruments such as Herschel and ALMA.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the conference
"Chemistry as a Diagnostic of Star Formation" (C.L. Curry & M. Fich eds.
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