Turbulence Cascade in Cygnus X Revealed by Multi-point VDF Method
Abstract
Turbulence plays a crucial role in regulating star formation activities within molecular clouds, yet few methods can directly reveal its properties and underlying processes. We use molecular line data from the Nobeyama 45m Cygnus X CO Survey to study the turbulence properties and their relationships with star-forming activities and/or other non-thermal motions. In this work, we apply the multi-point velocity dispersion function (VDF), rather than direct linewidth measurements, to investigate the non-thermal properties of molecular cloud motions. We filter out the large-scale ordered structure and isolate a relatively small-scale turbulence component. Through the Friends In Velocity (FIVe) algorithm, we identify 10 substructures of the clouds and derive the turbulent properties of each cloud using the VDF method. We find that both the cloud-complex regions and the 10 velocity substructures exhibit turbulence correlation lengths of ∼ 2--5 pc. This plateau scale suggests a parsec-scale turbulence correlation or driving scale in Cygnus X. Below this scale, the rising VDFs trace the velocity scaling of the turbulent cascade, whereas larger-scale VDF variations likely reflect cloud-scale motions. The comparison between cloud complexes and substructures further suggests that, in observational data, the VDF may constrain the turbulence correlation scale more robustly than the turbulence velocity dispersion.
Versions
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BibTeX
@misc{huang2026turbulence,
title = {{Turbulence Cascade in Cygnus X Revealed by Multi-point VDF Method}},
author = {Junjie Huang and Yangjun Pu and Keping Qiu and Junhao Liu and Yingxi Li and Mengke Zhao},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.08894},
eprint = {2609.08894},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08894},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Turbulence Cascade in Cygnus X Revealed by Multi-point VDF Method
AU - Junjie Huang
AU - Yangjun Pu
AU - Keping Qiu
AU - Junhao Liu
AU - Yingxi Li
AU - Mengke Zhao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/08
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.08894
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.08894
AB - Turbulence plays a crucial role in regulating star formation activities within molecular clouds, yet few methods can directly reveal its properties and underlying processes. We use molecular line data from the Nobeyama 45m Cygnus X CO Survey to study the turbulence properties and their relationships with star-forming activities and/or other non-thermal motions. In this work, we apply the multi-point velocity dispersion function (VDF), rather than direct linewidth measurements, to investigate the non-thermal properties of molecular cloud motions. We filter out the large-scale ordered structure and isolate a relatively small-scale turbulence component. Through the Friends In Velocity (FIVe) algorithm, we identify 10 substructures of the clouds and derive the turbulent properties of each cloud using the VDF method. We find that both the cloud-complex regions and the 10 velocity substructures exhibit turbulence correlation lengths of ∼ 2--5 pc. This plateau scale suggests a parsec-scale turbulence correlation or driving scale in Cygnus X. Below this scale, the rising VDFs trace the velocity scaling of the turbulent cascade, whereas larger-scale VDF variations likely reflect cloud-scale motions. The comparison between cloud complexes and substructures further suggests that, in observational data, the VDF may constrain the turbulence correlation scale more robustly than the turbulence velocity dispersion.
ER -