An Observational Method to Measure the Relative Fractions of Solenoidal and Compressible Modes in Interstellar Clouds

TL;DR

This paper presents a new observational method to estimate the proportion of solenoidal versus compressible modes in interstellar clouds, validated with simulations, aiding understanding of turbulence in molecular clouds.

Contribution

The paper introduces a novel observational technique for measuring solenoidal mode fractions in molecular clouds, tested with numerical simulations, and provides a framework for density-velocity correlation analysis.

Findings

Method accurately estimates solenoidal fractions in simulations

Assumes isotropy, not accounting for magnetic field anisotropies

Framework for density-velocity correlation analysis introduced

Abstract

We introduce a new method for observationally estimating the fraction of momentum density (${\rho}{\mathbf{v}}$) power contained in solenoidal modes (for which $\nabla \cdot {\rho}{\mathbf{v}} = 0$) in molecular clouds. The method is successfully tested with numerical simulations of supersonic turbulence that produce the full range of possible solenoidal/compressible fractions. At present the method assumes statistical isotropy, and does not account for anisotropies caused by (e.g.) magnetic fields. We also introduce a framework for statistically describing density--velocity correlations in turbulent clouds.