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Ambipolar Diffusion Effects on Weakly Ionized Turbulence Molecular Clouds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2011

Pak Shing Li ,
Christopher F. McKee  and
Richard I. Klein
Pak Shing Li
Affiliation:
Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA email: psli@astro.berkeley.edu
Christopher F. McKee
Affiliation:
Physics Department and Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA email: cmckee@astro.berkeley.edu
Richard I. Klein
Affiliation:
Astronomy Department, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA; and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O.Box 808, L-23, Livermore, CA 94550, USA email: klein@astron.berkeley.edu
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Abstract

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Ambipolar diffusion (AD) is a key process in molecular clouds (MCs). Non-ideal MHD turbulence simulations are technically very challenging because of the large Alfvén speed of ions in weakly ionized clouds. Using the Heavy-Ion Approximation method (Li, McKee & Klein 2006), we have carried out two-fluid simulations of AD in isothermal, turbulent boxes at a resolution of 5123, to investigate the effect of AD on the weakly ionized turbulence in MCs. Our simulation results show that the neutral gas component of the two-fluid system gradually transforms from an ideal MHD turbulence system to near a pure hydrodynamic turbulence system within the standard AD regime, in which the neutrals and ions are coupled over a flow time. The change of the turbulent state has a profound effect on the weakly ionized MCs.

Keywords

turbulenceISM: magnetic fieldsISM: cloudsmethods: numerical
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 6 , Symposium S270: Computational Star Formation , May 2010 , pp. 421 - 424
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2011

References

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