Study of velocity centroids based on the theory of fluctuations in position-position-velocity space

TL;DR

This paper investigates the use of velocity centroids to analyze turbulence in optically thick media, exploring their limitations, applicability, and how they can be used to infer magnetic properties and mode contributions in MHD turbulence.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of velocity centroids by analyzing their spectra, anisotropies, and applicability limits in different turbulence regimes, including absorption effects and magnetic field influences.

Findings

Velocity centroids reflect turbulence spectra in optically thin media.

Absorption effects limit centroid applicability in dense regions.

VC anisotropy helps determine media magnetization and mode contributions.

Abstract

We study possibility of obtaining velocity spectra by studying turbulence in an optically thick medium using velocity centroids (VCs).We find that the regime of universal, i.e. independent of underlying turbulence statistics, fluctuations discovered originally within the velocity channel analysis (VCA) carries over to the statistics of VCs. In other words, for large absorptions the VC lose their ability to reflect the spectra of turbulence. Combining our present study with the earlier studies of centroids in Esquivel & Lazarian, we conclude that centroids are applicable for studies subsonic/transsonic turbulence for the range of scales that is limited by the absorption effects. We also consider VCs based on absorption lines and define the range of their applicability. We address the problem of analytical description of spectra and anisotropies of fluctuations that are available through studies using VC. We obtain spectra and anisotropy of VC fluctuations arising from Alfv\'en, slow and fast modes that constitute the compressible MHD cascade to address the issue of anisotropy of VC statistics, and show how the VC anisotropy can be used to find the media magnetization as well as to identify and separate contributions from Alfv\'en, slow and fast modes. Our study demonstrates that VCs are complementary to the tools provided by the VCA. In order to study turbulent volume for which the resolution of single dish telescopes is insufficient, we demonstrate how the studies of anisotropy can be performed using interferometers.