On the Structure of the Turbulent Interstellar Clouds

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution simulations to analyze the structure and dynamics of turbulent interstellar clouds, revealing key differences between 2-phase and polytropic flows and aligning well with observational data.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison of 2-phase and polytropic flows in interstellar clouds, highlighting their differences and similarities in structure and dynamics.

Findings

2-phase flows exhibit smaller internal velocity dispersions.

Density PDFs and Mach number relations differ between flow types.

Powerlaw relations match observational data.

Abstract

{It is well established that the atomic interstellar hydrogen is filling the galaxies and constitutes the building blocks of molecular clouds.} {To understand the formation and the evolution of molecular clouds, it is necessary to investigate the dynamics of turbulent and thermally bistable as well as barotropic flows.} {We perform high resolution 3-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of 2-phase, isothermal and polytropic flows.} {We compare the density PDF and Mach number density relation in the various simulations and conclude that 2-phase flows behave rather differently than polytropic flows. We also extract the clumps and study their statistical properties such as mass spectrum, mass-size relation and internal velocity dispersion. In each case, it is found that the behaviour is well represented by a simple powerlaw. While the various exponents inferred are very similar for the 2-phase, isothermal and polytropic flows, we nevertheless find significant differences, such as for example the internal velocity dispersion which is smaller for 2-phase flows.} {The structures statistics are very similar to what has been inferred from observations, in particular the mass spectrum, the mass-size relation and the velocity dispersion-size relation are all powerlaws whose indices well agree with the observed values. Our results suggest that in spite of various statistics being similar for 2-phase and polytropic flows, they nevertheless present significant differences, stressing the necessity to consider the proper thermal structure of the interstellar atomic hydrogen for computing its dynamics as well as the formation of molecular clouds.}