Dust Heating by the Interstellar Radiation Field in Models of Turbulent Molecular Clouds

Abstract

We have calculated the radiation field, dust grain temperatures, and far-infrared emissivity of numerical models of turbulent molecular clouds. When compared to a uniform cloud of the same mean optical depth, most of the volume inside the turbulent cloud is brighter, but most of the mass is darker. There is little mean attenuation from center to edge, and clumping causes the radiation field to be somewhat bluer. There is also a large dispersion, typically by a few orders of magnitude, of all quantities relative to their means. However, despite the scatter, the 850 μm emission maps are well correlated with surface density. The fraction of mass as a function of intensity can be reproduced by a simple hierarchical model of density structure.