Scaling relations of supersonic turbulence in star-forming molecular clouds

We present a direct numerical and analytical study of driven supersonic magnetohydrodynamic turbulence that is believed to govern the dynamics of star-forming molecular clouds. We describe statistical properties of the turbulence by measuring the velocity difference structure functions up to the fifth order. In particular, the velocity power spectrum in the inertial range is found to be close to E-k similar to k(-1.74), and the velocity difference scales as [\Deltau\] similar to L-0.42. The results agree well with the Kolmogorov-Burgers analytical model suggested for supersonic turbulence. We then generalize the model to more realistic, fractal structure of molecular clouds and show that depending on the fractal dimension of a given molecular cloud, the theoretical value for the velocity spectrum spans the interval [-1.74, -1.89], while the corresponding window for the velocity difference scaling exponent is [-0.42, 0.78].