Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-vt8vv Total loading time: 0.001 Render date: 2024-08-21T05:48:08.477Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

A Statistical Model for the Cloud Structure of the Interstellar Medium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 August 2015

L. G. Taff
Affiliation:
C. E. Kenneth Mees Observatory, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y., U.S.A.
M. P. Savedoff
Affiliation:
C. E. Kenneth Mees Observatory, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, N.Y., U.S.A.

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

We have formulated and studied the properties of a mathematical model intended to span between the hydrodynamical and discontinuous regimes. Model parameters and predictions permit matching the observed mass spectrum of those interstellar clouds with masses between 103 and 106M⊙. The central element of the theory is the specification of P (m, m′, μ, μ′, … μ″), the conditional probability that once a collision has occurred between clouds of mass m, m′ the result is clouds of mass μ, μ′, … μ″. For stable solutions to exist we require that the total mass in the system be conserved. Such simple models as total coalescence, geometric overlap and partition statistics were considered for P as well as several probabilities based on possible physical conditions that might prevail in cloud-cloud collisions. One immediate numerical result of these models is that nearly total coalescence must obtain in actual cloud-cloud collisions before one can build up a non-infinitesimal concentration of large mass couds. Field and coworkers (1965, 1968) indicate that total coalescence would produce a minimum in the mass spectrum and that as the position of the minimum went to infinity the spectrum itself more closely approximates a power law curve with index − 3/2. In none of our calculations was anything but strict monotonic decrease observed and under the same physical assumptions as Field the curve we obtain (analytically) has no minimum, independent of the largest mass in the system. Both of these spectra are flatter than recent observational evidence indicate. True equilibrium solutions exist in our formulation with an e-folding time ≃ 107 yr for objects such as these. We are continuing work on the detailed time evolution of interstellar clouds in particular and formulating other astronomically interesting applications of the general theory.

Type
Part X Miscellaneous
Copyright
Copyright © Reidel 1973 

References

Field, G. B. and Saslaw, W. C.: 1965, Astrophys. J. 142, 568.Google Scholar
Field, G. B. and Hutchins, J.: 1968, Astrophys. J. 153, 737.Google Scholar
Oort, J. H.: 1954, Bull. Astron. Inst. Neth. 12, 177.Google Scholar
Taff, L. G.: 1973, unpublished , .Google Scholar
Taff, L. G. and Savedoff, M. P.: 1972, Monthly Notices Roy. Astron. Soc. 160, 89.Google Scholar