Local Turbulence Simulations for the Multiphase ISM

TL;DR

This paper presents numerical simulations of turbulence in the interstellar medium using a novel high-Mach number scheme, exploring physical properties, different equations of state, and magnetic field effects, with results aligning with observations.

Contribution

It introduces a Riemann solver-free numerical scheme for high-Mach turbulence simulations and applies it to study the ISM's physical properties and magnetic field effects.

Findings

Different equations of state affect density spectra and structures.

Realistic heating/cooling reproduces two-phase plasma distribution.

Magnetic field strength estimates from simulations differ from observations by a factor of 1.5.

Abstract

In this paper we show results of numerical simulations for the turbulence in the interstellar medium. These results were obtained using a Riemann solver-free numerical scheme for high-Mach number hyperbolic equations. Here we especially concentrate on the physical properties of the ISM. That is, we do not present turbulence simulations trimmed to be applicable to the interstellar medium. The simulations are rather based on physical estimates for the relevant parameters of the interstellar gas. Applying our code to simulate the turbulent plasma motion within a typical interstellar molecular cloud, we investigate the influence of different equations of state (isothermal and adiabatic) on the statistical properties of the resulting turbulent structures. We find slightly different density power spectra and dispersion maps, while both cases yield qualitatively similar dissipative structures, and exhibit a departure from the classical Kolmogorov case towards a scaling described by the She-Leveque model. Solving the full energy equation with realistic heating/cooling terms appropriate for the diffuse interstellar gas, we are able to reproduce a realistic two-phase distribution of cold and warm plasma. When extracting maps of polarised intensity from our simulation data, we find encouraging similarity to actual observations. Finally, we compare the actual magnetic field strength of our simulations to its value inferred from the rotation measure. We find these to be systematically different by a factor of about 1.5, thus highlighting the often underestimated influence of varying line-of-sight particle densities on the magnetic field strength derived from observed rotation measures.