Observational diagnostics of self-gravitating mhd turbulence in giant molecular clouds

Abstract

We study the observable signatures of self-gravitating magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) turbulence by applying the probability density functions (PDFs) and the spatial density power spectrum to synthetic column density maps. We find that there exists three characterizable stages of the evolution of the collapsing cloud which we term "early," "intermediate," and "advanced." At early times, i.e., t < 0.15tff , the column density has a power spectral slope similar to nongravitating supersonic turbulence and a lognormal distribution. At an intermediate stage, i.e., 0.15tff 0.35tff , the power spectral slope is positive valued, and a dramatic increase is observed in the PDF moments and the Tsallis incremental PDF parameters, which gives rise to deviations between PDF-sonic Mach number relations. Finally, we show that the imprint of gravity on the density power spectrum can be replicated in non-gravitating turbulence by introducing a delta-function with amplitude equivalent to the maximum valued point in a given self-gravitating map. We find that the turbulence power spectrum restored through spatial filtering of the high density material.