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Peer-reviewedCC BY 4.0The Astrophysical Journal

Examining Turbulence in Galactic Molecular Clouds. II. Turbulence Cascade Beyond the Scale of Giant Molecular Clouds

  • Yuehui Ma1
  • Miaomiao Zhang1
  • Hongchi Wang1
  • Xuepeng Chen1,2
  • Zhenyi Yue1,2
  • Suziye He1,2
  • Xiangyu Ou1,2
  • Li Sun1
  1. 1Chinese Academy of Sciences
  2. 2University of Science and Technology of China
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Abstract

We use ¹² CO ( J = 1–0) data from the MWISP survey to investigate turbulence in a ∼kiloparsec-scale segment of the Local Arm. By slicing the position–position–velocity cube into narrow layers that follow the Galactic-rotation trend in the L – V diagram, we find that the structure functions (SFs) and spatial power spectra (SPS) of the ¹² CO ( J = 1–0) line velocity and intensity exhibit consistent scaling behaviors across all layers, demonstrating that the molecular gas forms a single, coherent turbulent field with energy cascading from ∼200 pc down to parsec scales. The SPS power-law slopes of both the intensity and velocity fields approach the values expected from turbulence models. Cloud-to-cloud velocity SFs based on the molecular clouds located in the region follow the same extended self-similarity scaling (ESS) as the pixel-based statistics, indicating that intercloud motions are part of the same large-scale turbulent cascade. Together, these results provide direct observational evidence that molecular clouds are not dynamically isolated entities but are embedded within a larger-scale turbulent flow that links galactic dynamics to star formation on cloud scales.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{ma2026examining,
  title = {{Examining Turbulence in Galactic Molecular Clouds. II. Turbulence Cascade Beyond the Scale of Giant Molecular Clouds}},
  author = {Yuehui Ma and Miaomiao Zhang and Hongchi Wang and Xuepeng Chen and Zhenyi Yue and Suziye He and Xiangyu Ou and Li Sun},
  journal = {The Astrophysical Journal},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.3847/1538-4357/aea610},
  url = {https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aea610},
  note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Examining Turbulence in Galactic Molecular Clouds. II. Turbulence Cascade Beyond the Scale of Giant Molecular Clouds
AU  - Yuehui Ma
AU  - Miaomiao Zhang
AU  - Hongchi Wang
AU  - Xuepeng Chen
AU  - Zhenyi Yue
AU  - Suziye He
AU  - Xiangyu Ou
AU  - Li Sun
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/19
JO  - The Astrophysical Journal
DO  - 10.3847/1538-4357/aea610
UR  - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aea610
AB  - We use ¹² CO ( J = 1–0) data from the MWISP survey to investigate turbulence in a ∼kiloparsec-scale segment of the Local Arm. By slicing the position–position–velocity cube into narrow layers that follow the Galactic-rotation trend in the L – V diagram, we find that the structure functions (SFs) and spatial power spectra (SPS) of the ¹² CO ( J = 1–0) line velocity and intensity exhibit consistent scaling behaviors across all layers, demonstrating that the molecular gas forms a single, coherent turbulent field with energy cascading from ∼200 pc down to parsec scales. The SPS power-law slopes of both the intensity and velocity fields approach the values expected from turbulence models. Cloud-to-cloud velocity SFs based on the molecular clouds located in the region follow the same extended self-similarity scaling (ESS) as the pixel-based statistics, indicating that intercloud motions are part of the same large-scale turbulent cascade. Together, these results provide direct observational evidence that molecular clouds are not dynamically isolated entities but are embedded within a larger-scale turbulent flow that links galactic dynamics to star formation on cloud scales.
SN  - 0004-637X
SN  - 1538-4357
ER  -