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Solenoidal versus compressive turbulence forcing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2010

C. Federrath
Affiliation:
Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str. 2, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
J. Duval
Affiliation:
Astronomy Department at Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215, USA
R. S. Klessen
Affiliation:
Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg, Institut für Theoretische Astrophysik, Albert-Ueberle-Str. 2, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany
W. Schmidt
Affiliation:
Institut für Astrophysik Göttingen, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
M.-M. Mac Low
Affiliation:
Department of Astrophysics, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th Street, New York, NY 10024-5192, USA
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Abstract

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We analyze the statistics and star formation rate obtained in high-resolution numerical experiments of forced supersonic turbulence, and compare with observations. We concentrate on a systematic comparison of solenoidal (divergence-free) and compressive (curl-free) forcing (Federrath et al. 2009 a, b), which are two limiting cases of turbulence driving. Our results show that for the same RMS Mach number, compressive forcing produces a three times larger standard deviation of the density probability distribution. When self-gravity is included in the models, the star formation rate is more than one order of magnitude higher for compressive forcing than for solenoidal forcing.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

References

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