Supernova Driving. I. The Origin of Molecular Cloud Turbulence

TL;DR

This study demonstrates through simulations that supernova explosions can generate and sustain the turbulence observed in molecular clouds, matching key observational properties and suggesting SN-driven turbulence as a natural explanation.

Contribution

The paper provides the first simulation-based evidence that supernova explosions alone can produce the observed turbulence and structural properties of molecular clouds.

Findings

SN-driven turbulence reproduces observed velocity scaling laws.

Molecular cloud properties match those from the Outer-Galaxy Survey.

MC turbulence is super-Alfvénic with respect to magnetic fields.

Abstract

Turbulence is ubiquitous in molecular clouds (MCs), but its origin is still unclear because MCs are usually assumed to live longer than the turbulence dissipation time. Interstellar medium (ISM) turbulence is likely driven by SN explosions, but it has never been demonstrated that SN explosions can establish and maintain a turbulent cascade inside MCs consistent with the observations. In this work, we carry out a simulation of SN-driven turbulence in a volume of (250 pc)$^3$, specifically designed to test if SN driving alone can be responsible for the observed turbulence inside MCs. We find that SN driving establishes a velocity scaling consistent with the usual scaling laws of supersonic turbulence, suggesting that previous idealized simulations of MC turbulence, driven with a random, large-scale volume force, were correctly adopted as appropriate models for MC turbulence, despite the artificial driving. We also find that the same scaling laws extend to the interior of MCs, and that the velocity-size relation of the MCs selected from our simulation is consistent with that of MCs from the Outer-Galaxy Survey, the largest MC sample available. The mass-size relation and the mass and size probability distributions also compare successfully with those of the Outer Galaxy Survey. Finally, we show that MC turbulence is super-Alfv\'{e}nic with respect to both the mean and rms magnetic-field strength. We conclude that MC structure and dynamics are the natural result of SN-driven turbulence.