Non-thermal states in models of filaments: a dynamical study

TL;DR

This study uses numerical simulations to show that non-thermal profiles in galactic filaments can naturally arise from dissipationless gravitational collapse, reproducing observed features without additional physics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that dissipationless gravitational dynamics in cylindrical symmetry can produce non-thermal filament profiles similar to observations.

Findings

Non-thermal profiles are intrinsic to collapse end states.

Cold initial conditions lead to anticorrelated density and temperature profiles.

Gravitational dynamics alone can reproduce observed filament properties.

Abstract

We study the origin of the non-thermal profiles observed in filamentary structures in galactic molecular clouds by means of numerical dynamical simulations. We find that such profiles are intrinsic features of the end products of dissipationless collapse in cylindrical symmetry. Moreover, for sufficiently cold initial conditions, we obtain end states characterized by markedly anticorrelated radial density and temperature profiles. Gravitational, dissipationless dynamics alone is thus sufficient to reproduce, at least qualitatively, many of the properties of the observed non-thermal structures.