Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 727, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/2041-8205/727/1/L20
Keywords
ISM: structure; methods: numerical; stars: formation; turbulence
Categories
Funding
- NASA ATP [NNG056601G]
- NSF [AST-0507768, AST-0607675, AST-0908740]
- TeraGrid allocations [MCA98N020, MCA07S014]
- Direct For Computer & Info Scie & Enginr
- Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) [0910735] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [0908740] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We use deep adaptive mesh refinement simulations of isothermal self-gravitating supersonic turbulence to study the imprints of gravity on the mass density distribution in molecular clouds. The simulations show that the density distribution in self-gravitating clouds develops an extended power-law tail at high densities on top of the usual lognormal. We associate the origin of the tail with self-similar collapse solutions and predict the power index values in the range from-7/4 to -3/2 that agree with both simulations and observations of star-forming molecular clouds.
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