Non-ideal MHD turbulent decay in molecular clouds

TL;DR

This study investigates how non-ideal MHD effects, specifically ambipolar diffusion and the Hall effect, influence turbulent decay and structure in molecular clouds through high-resolution simulations.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation analysis of both ambipolar diffusion and the Hall effect simultaneously in turbulent molecular clouds.

Findings

Ambipolar diffusion accelerates turbulence decay.

Hall effect has negligible impact on decay rate.

Non-ideal effects steepen density and magnetic power spectra.

Abstract

It is well known that non-ideal magnetohydrodynamic effects are important in the dynamics of molecular clouds: both ambipolar diffusion and possibly the Hall effect have been identified as significant. We present the results of a suite of simulations with a resolution of 512-cubed of turbulent decay in molecular clouds incorporating a simplified form of both ambipolar diffusion and the Hall effect simultaneously. The initial velocity field in the turbulence is varied from being super-Alfv\'enic and hypersonic, through to trans-Alfv\'enic but still supersonic. We find that ambipolar diffusion increases the rate of decay of the turbulence increasing the decay from $t^{-1.25}$ to $t^{-1.4}$. The Hall effect has virtually no impact in this regard. The power spectra of density, velocity and the magnetic field are all affected by the non-ideal terms, being steepened significantly when compared with ideal MHD turbulence with exponents. The density power spectra components change from about 1.4 to about 2.1 for the ideal and non-ideal simulations respectively, and power spectra of the other variables all show similar modifications when non-ideal effects are considered. Again, the dominant source of these changes is ambipolar diffusion rather than the Hall effect. There is also a decoupling between the velocity field and the magnetic field at short length scales. The Hall effect leads to enhanced magnetic reconnection, and hence less power, at short length scales. The dependence of the velocity dispersion on the characteristic length scale is studied and found not to be power-law in nature.