The Spatial Power Spectrum and Derived Turbulent Properties of Isolated Galaxies

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to analyze the spatial power spectra of isolated galaxies, revealing that the break scale varies with gas phase and does not typically indicate the disc scale height, emphasizing the importance of observational effects.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates that the break scale in power spectra depends on gas phase and is not a reliable indicator of disc scale height, highlighting the need to consider observational effects.

Findings

Break scale varies with gas phase.

In warm gas, it indicates transition to 3D turbulence.

In cold gas, it reflects molecular cloud sizes.

Abstract

The turbulent dynamics of nearby and extragalactic gas structures can be studied with the column density power spectrum, which is often described by a broken power-law.In an extragalactic context, the breaks in the power spectra have been interpreted to constrain the disc scale height, which marks a transition from 2D disc-like to 3D motion. However, this interpretation has recently been questioned when accounting for instrumental effects. We use numerical simulations to study the spatial power spectra of isolated galaxies and investigate the origins of the break scale. We split the gas into various phases and analyze the time evolution of the power spectrum characteristics, such as the slope(s) and the break scale. We find that the break scale is phase dependent. The physics traced by the break scale also differ: in the warm gas it marks the transition from 2D (disk-like) to 3D (isotropic) turbulence. In the cold gas, the break scale traces the typical size of molecular clouds. We further show that the break scale almost never traces the disc scale height. We study turbulent properties of the ISM to show that, in the case where the break scale traces a transition to isotropic turbulence, the fraction of required accretion energy to sustain turbulent motions in the ISM increases significantly. Lastly, we demonstrate through simulated observations that it is crucial to account for observational effects, such as the beam and instrumental noise, in order to accurately recover the break scale in real observations.