Characterization of turbulence from submillimeter dust emission

Abstract

In this paper, we use our recent technique for estimating the turbulent component of the magnetic field to derive the structure functions of the unpolarized emission as well as that of the Stokes Q and U parameters of the polarized emission. The solutions for the structure functions to 350 μm SHARP polarization data of OMC-1 allow the determination of the corresponding turbulent correlation length scales. The estimated values for these length scales are 94±0.1, 73±0.1, 126±0.2 (or 20.5±0.2, 16.0±0.2, and 27.5±0.4mpc at 450pc, the adopted distance for OMC-1) for the Stokes Q and U parameters, and for the unpolarized emission N, respectively. Our current results for Q and U are consistent with previous results obtained through other methods and may indicate presence of anisotropy in magnetized turbulence. We infer a weak coupling between the dust component responsible for the unpolarized emission N and the magnetic field B from the significant difference between their turbulent correlation length scales. © 2012. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.