Sub-Alfvenic Non-Ideal MHD Turbulence Simulations with Ambipolar Diffusion: III. Implications for Observations and Turbulent Enhancement

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to explore how ambipolar diffusion affects magnetic flux redistribution and observable signatures in star-forming regions, revealing that turbulence accelerates AD and impacts line observations.

Contribution

It provides the first 3D analysis of turbulence-enhanced ambipolar diffusion and links simulation results to observable spectral features in molecular clouds.

Findings

Linewidths of ions are narrower than neutrals due to AD.

AD accelerates by a factor of 2-4.5 in turbulent conditions.

Simulated emissions show AD effects are observable.

Abstract

Ambipolar diffusion (AD) is believed to be a crucial process for redistributing magnetic flux in the dense molecular gas that occurs in regions of star formation. We carry out numerical simulations of this process in regions of low ionization using the heavy ion approximation. The simulations are for regions of strong field (plasma \beta=0.1) and mildly supersonic turbulence (M=3, corresponding to an Alfven mach number of 0.67). The velocity power spectrum of the neutral gas changes from an Iroshnikov-Kraichnan spectrum in the case of ideal MHD to a Burgers spectrum in the case of a shock-dominated hydrodynamic system. The magnetic power spectrum shows a similar behavior. We use a 1D radiative transfer code to post-process our simulation results; the simulated emission from the CS J=2-1 and H13CO+ J=1-0 lines shows that the effects of AD are observable in principle. Linewidths of ions are observed to be less than those of neutrals, and we confirm previous suggestions that this is due to AD. We show that AD is unlikely to affect the Chandrasekhar-Fermi method for inferring field strengths unless the AD is stronger than generally observed. Finally, we present the first fully 3D study of the enhancement of AD by turbulence, finding that AD is accelerated by factor 2-4.5 for non self-gravitating systems with the level of turbulence we consider.