Tracing Turbulent Ambipolar Diffusion in Molecular Clouds

Abstract

Though flux freezing is a good approximation frequently assumed for molecular clouds, ambipolar diffusion (AD) is inevitable at certain scales. The scale at which AD sets in can be a crucial parameter for turbulence and the star formation process. However, both observation and simulation of AD are very challenging and our knowledge of it is very limited. We proposed earlier (Li and Houde 2008) that the difference between ion and neutral velocity spectra is a signature of turbulent AD and can be used to estimate the AD scales and magnetic field strength. Here we present observational evidence showing that this difference between the velocity dispersions from coexistent ions and neutrals is indeed correlated with magnetic field strength.

accepted by ApJ

References in corpus (5)

• Anchoring Magnetic Field in Turbulent Molecular Clouds
• The JCMT Legacy Survey of the Gould Belt: a first look at Orion B with HARP
• Probing the Turbulence Dissipation Range and Magnetic Field Strengths in Molecular Clouds
• Molecular line mapping of the giant molecular cloud associated with RCW 106 - III. Multi-molecular line mapping
• Damping of MHD turbulence in partially ionized gas and the observed difference of velocities of neutrals and ions

Cited by in corpus (14)

• The Big Problems in Star Formation: the Star Formation Rate, Stellar Clustering, and the Initial Mass Function
• Self-similar Fragmentation Regulated by Magnetic Fields in a Massive Star Forming Filament
• From Poloidal to Toroidal: Detection of Well-ordered Magnetic Field in High-mass Proto-cluster G35.2-0.74N
• Observational Determination of the Turbulent Ambipolar Diffusion Scale and Magnetic Field Strength in Molecular Clouds
• Driven Multifluid MHD Molecular Cloud Turbulence
• Evidence for Dynamically Important Magnetic Fields in Molecular Clouds
• Probing the Turbulence Dissipation Range and Magnetic Field Strengths in Molecular Clouds. II. Directly Probing the Ion-neutral Decoupling Scale
• Sub-Alfvenic Non-Ideal MHD Turbulence Simulations with Ambipolar Diffusion: III. Implications for Observations and Turbulent Enhancement
• Observational Diagnostics for Two-Fluid Turbulence in Molecular Clouds As Suggested by Simulations
• Ion and neutral molecules in the W43-MM1(G30.79 FIR 10) infalling clump
• Interactions between Gas Dynamics and Magnetic Fields in the Massive Dense Cores of the DR21 Filament
• GMC Collisions As Triggers of Star Formation. IV. The Role of Ambipolar Diffusion
• Neutral hydrogen filaments in interstellar media: Are they physical?
• A search for co-evolving ion and neutral gas species in prestellar molecular cloud cores