Shock-Generated Turbulence In the Innermost 50 pc of the Galaxy Center

TL;DR

This paper presents observational evidence of shock-generated supersonic turbulence in the innermost 50 parsecs of the Galactic Center, highlighting its role in gas dynamics and theoretical modeling validation.

Contribution

It provides the first observational confirmation of shock-induced turbulence in the Galactic Center's dense environment, linking turbulence characteristics to gas spectral modeling.

Findings

Evidence of supersonic turbulence caused by shock waves.

Turbulence characteristics help validate gas spectral models.

Dense environment influences gas kinematics and magnetic fields.

Abstract

The center of the Milky Way galaxy (MW) is an extreme environment which contains a massive black hole surrounded by a very dense star cluster, two other adjacent star clusters, and a giant molecular cloud which would serve as an incubator to a new generation of stars. The gas and dust in its vicinity are denser by 2-3 orders of magnitude than in other locations in the MW. This is also the case with the magnetic field. The kinematics of the gas is characterized by apparently random, supersonic flows. In this paper we provide observational evidence for the existence of a supersonic turbulence, most likely generated by the shock waves. Moreover, the mere existence of turbulence and its characteristics are shown to be instrumental in testing the validity and consistency of theoretical modeling of the spectra of the gas filaments.