Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 625, Issue 2, Pages 849-856Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1086/429553
Keywords
ISM : clouds; ISM : general; ISM : structure
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The interstellar medium seems to have an underlying fractal structure, which can be characterized through its fractal dimension. However, interstellar clouds are observed as projected two-dimensional images, and the projection of a three-dimensional fractal distorts its measured properties. Here we use simulated fractal clouds to study the relationship between the three-dimensional fractal dimension (D-f) of modeled clouds and the dimension resulting from their projected images. We analyze different fractal dimension estimators: the correlation and mass dimensions of the clouds and the perimeter-based dimension of their boundaries (D-per). We find the functional forms relating Df with the projected fractal dimensions, as well as their dependence on the image resolution, which allow us to estimate the real'' Df value of a cloud from its projection. The application of these results to Orion A indicates in a self-consistent way that 2.5 less than or similar to D-f less than or similar to 2.7 for this molecular cloud, a value higher than the result D-per + 1 similar or equal to 2.3 sometimes assumed in the literature for interstellar clouds.
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