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| EPoS Contribution |
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Kinematics of molecular clouds in the Milky Way - from sub-pc to kpc
Andri Spilker Chalmers, Gothenburg, SE | |
| The scale-dependency of molecular cloud kinematics is a diagnostic of how the different physical processes act at different scales in the interstellar medium (ISM). This makes determining the scale-dependency of relations such as the Larson's relations and the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation important probes of the ISM physics. We present an experiment in which the molecular clouds in the Solar neighbourhood (distance < 2 kpc) are examined from the outside, with the aim to unveil the connection between their true, 'resolved' properties and beam-averaged, 'unresolved' properties. We use this experiment to study the kinematics, density, and star formation statistics of the Solar neighbourhood clouds and determine how they appear when viewed through apertures of various sizes. The experiment results in a census of gas clouds within 2 kpc and a description of their velocity and column density distributions. We show how these diagnostics combine to form aperture-averaged diagnostics and describe their scale-dependency from sub-pc to kpc scales. In particular, we show how the velocity and density structures of individual clouds give rise to kpc-scale Larson's relations and the Kennicutt-Schmidt relation. This represents an important step in linking together Galactic and extragalactic knowledge on star formation. | |
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| Caption: Larson size-linewidth relation from sub-pc to kpc scales. Left: Illustration of Milky Way survey area with cloud sample and aperture sizes. Right: Size-linewidth relation for clouds and apertures. | |
| Collaborators: J. Kainulainen, Chalmers, SE J. Orkisz, Chalmers, SE |
Key publication
Suggested Session: Molecular Clouds |