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arXiv 0902.0820astro-ph.GA
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ISM中是否存在阶段?

Are There Phases in the ISM?

Enrique Vazquez-Semadeni

摘要:

星际介质(ISM)一方面会受到加热和冷却过程的影响,由于热不稳定性(TI),这些过程往往会将其分离成不同的相,另一方面,会受到湍流驱动机制的影响,这些机制往往会产生强烈的非线性波动所有热力学变量。在这一区域中,稳定的暖中性介质(WNM)中的大尺度湍流压缩主导了块体的形成过程,而不是TI的线性发展。由这种机制形成的冷团块通常由尖锐的密度和温度不连续性所限制,然而,这不是经典的2相模型中的接触不连续性,而是“相变前沿”,跨越该前沿存在从WNM到团块的净质量和动量通量。团块的生长主要是通过边界的吸积,与周围环境处于热和冲压压力平衡,内部也是湍流的,因此内部也有显着的密度波动。由于湍流压力的波动,相变前沿周围的冷气体和暖气体的温度和密度随时间和位置而波动。此外,激波压缩的扩散不稳定气体在经历向冷相的相变之前,可以保持在不稳定区域达几百万年。这些过程填充了经典禁止的密度和温度范围。由于气体在所有温度下似乎都存在于双稳态或三稳态湍流中,因此我们得出结论,“相”一词仅适用于局部,围绕气体中的相变位点。在全球范围内,“相”这个词必须放松其含义,仅表示一定的温度或密度范围。

英文摘要:

The interstellar medium (ISM) is subject, on one hand, to heating and cooling processes that tend to segregate it into distinct phases due to thermal instability (TI), and on the other, to turbulence-driving mechanisms that tend to produce strong nonlinear fluctuations in all the thermodynamic variables. In this regime, large-scale turbulent compressions in the stable warm neutral medium (WNM) dominate the clump-formation process rather than the linear developent of TI. Cold clumps formed by this mechanism are often bounded by sharp density and temperature discontinuities, which however are not contact discontinuities as in the classical 2-phase model, but rather "phase transition fronts", across which there is net mass and momentum flux from the WNM into the clumps. The clumps grow mainly by accretion through their boundaries, are in both thermal and ram pressure balance with their surroundings, and are internally turbulent as well, thus also having significant density fluctuations inside. The temperature and density of the cold and warm gas around the phase transition fronts fluctuate with time and location due to fluctuations in the turbulent pressure. Moreover, shock-compressed diffuse unstable gas can remain in the unstable regime for up to a few Myr before it undergoes a phase transition to the cold phase. These processes populate the classically forbidden density and temperature ranges. Since gas at all temperatures appears to be present in bi- or tri-stable turbulence, we conclude that the word "phase" applies only locally, surrounding phase transition sites in the gas. Globally, the word "phase" must relax its meaning to simply denote a certain temperature or density range.

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