Evidence of large scale energy cascade in the spiral galaxy NGC 5236

TL;DR

This study provides the first comprehensive analysis of large-scale turbulence in the spiral galaxy NGC 5236, revealing energy injection at 6 kpc and turbulence driven mainly by gravitational instabilities.

Contribution

It combines archival and new observations to characterize turbulence power spectra across scales, highlighting gravitational effects as primary turbulence drivers.

Findings

Energy input scale around 6 kpc

Power spectra follow specific slopes indicating compressive forcing

Turbulence driven mainly by gravitational instabilities

Abstract

Turbulence plays an important role in the structure and dynamics of the galaxy and influences various processes therein including star formation. In this work, we investigate the large scale turbulence properties of the external spiral galaxy NGC 5236. We combine the VLA multi-configuration archival data with the new GMRT observation to estimate the column density and line of sight velocity fluctuation power spectra for this galaxy over almost two decades of length scales. The energy input scale to the ISM turbulence is found to be around $6$ kpc. Power spectra of the two-dimensional turbulence in the galaxy's disk follow a power law with a slope $-1.23\pm0.06$ for the column density and $-1.91\pm0.08$ for the line of sight velocity. The measured power spectra slopes strongly suggest in favour of a compressive forcing with a steady energy input of $\sim 7 \times 10^{-11}$ erg cm$^{-2}$ sec$^{-1}$. We conclude that much of these originate from the gravitational instabilities and self-gravity in the disk. This is the first and most comprehensive study of turbulence statistics for any external spiral galaxy.