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Density PDFs of Super-Sonic Turbulence

AAke Nordlund, Paolo Padoan

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/9810074

Abstract

The question of the shape of the density PDF for supersonic turbulence is addressed, using both analytical and numerical methods. For isothermal supersonic turbulence, the PDF is Log-Normal, with a width that scales approximately linearly with the Mach number. For a polytropic equation of state, with an effective gamma smaller than one, the PDF becomes skewed and reminiscent of (but not equal to) a power law on the high density side.

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