The origin of a universal filament width in molecular clouds

Priestley, F. D. and Whitworth, A. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1178-5486 2022. The origin of a universal filament width in molecular clouds. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 509 (1) , 1494–1503. 10.1093/mnras/stab2816

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Abstract

Filamentary structures identified in far-infrared observations of molecular clouds are typically found to have full widths at half-maximum ∼0.1pc⁠. However, the physical explanation for this phenomenon is currently uncertain. We use hydrodynamic simulations of cylindrically symmetric converging flows to show that the full width at half-maximum of the resulting filament’s surface density profile, FWHMΣ⁠, is closely related to the location of the accretion shock, where the inflow meets the boundary of the filament. For inflow Mach number, M⁠, between 1 and 5, filament FWHMΣs fall in the range 0.03pc≲FWHMΣ≲0.3pc⁠, with higher M resulting in narrower filaments. A large sample of filaments, seen at different evolutionary stages and with different values of M⁠, naturally results in a peaked distribution of FWHMΣs similar in shape to that obtained from far-infrared observations of molecular clouds. However, unless the converging flows are limited to M≲3⁠, the peak of the distribution of FWHMΣs is below the observed ∼0.1pc⁠.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Advanced Research Computing @ Cardiff (ARCCA) Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	Royal Astronomical Society
ISSN:	0035-8711
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	1 December 2021
Date of Acceptance:	27 September 2021
Last Modified:	17 Jun 2024 13:57
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/145762

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