Characterization of Turbulence from Submillimeter Dust Emission

TL;DR

This study employs a novel technique to analyze turbulence in magnetic fields using submillimeter dust emission data, revealing correlation lengths and potential anisotropy in magnetized turbulence.

Contribution

It introduces a new method for estimating the turbulent magnetic field component and characterizes turbulence structure functions from polarization data.

Findings

Estimated turbulent correlation length scales for polarization and unpolarized emission.

Results consistent with previous methods, suggesting anisotropy in turbulence.

Indication of weak coupling between dust emission and magnetic field.

Abstract

In this paper we use our recent technique for estimating the turbulent component of the magnetic field to derive the structure functions of the unpolarized emission as well as that of the Stokes Q and U parameters of the polarized emission. The solutions for the structure functions to 350-um SHARP polarization data of OMC-1 allow the determination of the corresponding turbulent correlation length scales. The estimated values for these length scales are 9.4" +/- 0.1", 7.3" +/- 0.1", 12.6" +/- 0.2" (or 20.5 +/- 0.2, 16.0 +/- 0.2, and 27.5 +/- 0.4 mpc at 450 pc, the adopted distance for OMC-1) for the Stokes Q and U parameters, and for the unpolarized emission N, respectively. Our current results for Q and U are consistent with previous results obtained through other methods, and may indicate presence of anisotropy in magnetized turbulence. We infer a weak coupling between the dust component responsible for the unpolarized emission N and the magnetic field B from the significant difference between their turbulent correlation length scales.