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Lazarian, A

Publications and source records attributed to Lazarian, A.

At least 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2012

THE COLUMN DENSITY VARIANCE-M{sub s} RELATIONSHIP

Although there is a wealth of column density tracers for both the molecular and diffuse interstellar medium, there are few observational studies investigating the relationship between the density variance ({sigma}{sup 2}) and the sonic Mach number (M{sub s}). This is in part due to the fact that the {sigma}{sup 2}-M{sub s} relationship is derived, via MHD simulations, for the three-dimensional (3D) density variance only, which is not a direct observable. We investigate the utility of a 2D column density {sigma}{sub {Sigma}/{Sigma}0}{sup 2}-M{sub s} relationship using solenoidally driven isothermal MHD simulations and find that the best fit follows closely the form of the 3D density {sigma}{sub {rho}/{rho}0}{sup 2}-M{sub s} trend but includes a scaling parameter A such that {sigma}{sub ln({Sigma}/{Sigma}o)} = A x ln(1+b{sup 2} M{sub s}{sup 2}), where A = 0.11 and b = 1/3. This relation is consistent with the observational data reported for the Taurus and IC 5146 molecular clouds with b = 0.5 and A = 0.16, and b = 0.5 and A = 0.12, respectively. These results open up the possibility of using the 2D column density values of {sigma}{sup 2} for investigations of the relation between the sonic Mach number and the probability distribution function (PDF) variance in addition to existing PDF sonic Mach number relations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

PROPERTIES OF INTERSTELLAR TURBULENCE FROM GRADIENTS OF LINEAR POLARIZATION MAPS

Faraday rotation of linearly polarized radio signals provides a very sensitive probe of fluctuations in the interstellar magnetic field and ionized gas density resulting from magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence. We used a set of statistical tools to analyze images of the spatial gradient of linearly polarized radio emission (|{nabla}P|) for both observational data from a test image of the Southern Galactic Plane Survey (SGPS) and isothermal three-dimensional simulations of MHD turbulence. Visually, in both observations and simulations, a complex network of filamentary structures is seen. Our analysis shows that the filaments in |{nabla}P| can be produced both by interacting shocks and random fluctuations characterizing the non-differentiable field of MHD turbulence. The latter dominates for subsonic turbulence, while the former is only present in supersonic turbulence. We show that supersonic and subsonic turbulence exhibit different distributions as well as different morphologies in the maps of |{nabla}P|. Particularly, filaments produced by shocks show a characteristic 'double jump' profile at the sites of shock fronts resulting from delta function-like increases in the density and/or magnetic field, while those produced by subsonic turbulence show a single jump profile. In order to quantitatively characterize these differences, we use the topology tool known as the genus curve as well as the probability distribution function moments of the image distribution. We find that higher values for the moments correspond to cases of |{nabla}P| with larger sonic Mach numbers. The genus analysis of the supersonic simulations of |{nabla}P| reveals a 'swiss cheese' topology, while the subsonic cases have characteristics of a 'clump' topology. Based on the analysis of the genus and the higher order moments, the SGPS test region data have a distribution and morphology that match subsonic- to transonic-type turbulence, which confirms what is now expected for the warm ionized medium.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

A TECHNIQUE FOR FOREGROUND SUBTRACTION IN REDSHIFTED 21 cm OBSERVATIONS

One of the main challenges for future 21 cm observations is to remove foregrounds which are several orders of magnitude more intense than the H I signal. We propose a new technique for removing foregrounds of the redshifted 21 cm observations. We consider multi-frequency interferometer observations. We assume that the 21 cm signals in different frequency channels are uncorrelated and the foreground signals change slowly as a function of frequency. When we add the visibilities of all channels, the foreground signals increase roughly by a factor of {approx}N because they are highly correlated. However, the 21 cm signals increase by a factor of {approx}{radical}N because the signals in different channels contribute randomly. This enables us to obtain an accurate shape of the foreground angular power spectrum. Then, we obtain the 21 cm power spectrum by subtracting the foreground power spectrum obtained this way. We describe how to obtain the average power spectrum of the 21 cm signal.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

THE ROLE OF TURBULENT MAGNETIC RECONNECTION IN THE FORMATION OF ROTATIONALLY SUPPORTED PROTOSTELLAR DISKS

The formation of protostellar disks out of molecular cloud cores is still not fully understood. Under ideal MHD conditions, the removal of angular momentum from the disk progenitor by the typically embedded magnetic field may prevent the formation of a rotationally supported disk during the main protostellar accretion phase of low-mass stars. This has been known as the magnetic braking problem and the most investigated mechanism to alleviate this problem and help remove the excess of magnetic flux during the star formation process, the so-called ambipolar diffusion (AD), has been shown to be not sufficient to weaken the magnetic braking at least at this stage of the disk formation. In this work, motivated by recent progress in the understanding of magnetic reconnection in turbulent environments, we appeal to the diffusion of magnetic field mediated by magnetic reconnection as an alternative mechanism for removing magnetic flux. We investigate numerically this mechanism during the later phases of the protostellar disk formation and show its high efficiency. By means of fully three-dimensional MHD simulations, we show that the diffusivity arising from turbulent magnetic reconnection is able to transport magnetic flux to the outskirts of the disk progenitor at timescales compatible with the collapse, allowing the formation of a rotationally supported disk around the protostar of dimensions {approx}100 AU, with a nearly Keplerian profile in the early accretion phase. Since MHD turbulence is expected to be present in protostellar disks, this is a natural mechanism for removing magnetic flux excess and allowing the formation of these disks. This mechanism dismisses the necessity of postulating a hypothetical increase of the ohmic resistivity as discussed in the literature. Together with our earlier work which showed that magnetic flux removal from molecular cloud cores is very efficient, this work calls for reconsidering the relative role of AD in the processes of star and planet formation.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

STATISTICAL DESCRIPTION OF SYNCHROTRON INTENSITY FLUCTUATIONS: STUDIES OF ASTROPHYSICAL MAGNETIC TURBULENCE

We provide a theoretical description of synchrotron fluctuations arising from magnetic turbulence. We derive an expression that relates the correlation of synchrotron fluctuations for an arbitrary index of relativistic electrons to the correlations arising from a particular {gamma} = 2 index that provides synchrotron emissivity proportional to the squared intensity of perpendicular to the line-of-sight component of magnetic field. We provide a detailed study of the statistics in the latter case assuming that the underlying magnetic turbulence is axisymmetric. We obtain general relations valid for an arbitrary model of magnetic axisymmetric turbulence and analyze the relations for the particular example of magnetic turbulence that is supported by numerical simulations. We predict that the synchrotron intensity fluctuations are anisotropic with larger correlation present along the direction of magnetic field. This anisotropy is dominated by the quadrupole component with the ratio between quadrupole and monopole parts being sensitive to the compressibility of underlying turbulence. Our work opens avenues for quantitative studies of magnetic turbulence in our Galaxy and beyond using synchrotron emission. It also outlines the directions of how synchrotron foreground emission can be separated from cosmological signal, i.e., from cosmic microwave background or highly redshifted H I emission. We also provide the expressions for the synchrotron polarization (Stokes parameters and their combinations) for the model of axisymmetric magnetic turbulence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

REVISITING ACCELERATION OF CHARGED GRAINS IN MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMIC TURBULENCE

We study the acceleration of charged grains by magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence in the interstellar medium (ISM). We begin with revisiting gyroresonance acceleration by taking into account the fluctuations of grain guiding center along a uniform magnetic field (i.e., nonlinear theory-NLT). We calculate grain velocities due to gyroresonance by fast MHD modes using the NLT for different phases of the ISM and compare them with results obtained using quasi-linear theory (QLT). We find for the parameters applicable to the typical ISM phases that the fluctuations of the grain guiding center reduce grain velocities by less than 15%, but they can be important for more special circumstances. We confirm that large grains can be accelerated to super-Alfvenic velocities through gyroresonance. For such super-Alfvenic grains, we investigate the effect of further acceleration via transit-time damping (TTD) by fast modes. We find that due to the broadening of the resonance condition in the NLT, the TTD acceleration is not only important for the cosines of grain pitch angle relative to the magnetic field {mu} > V{sub A}/v, but also for {mu} < V{sub A}/v where v is the grain velocity and V{sub A} is the Alfven speed. We show that the TTD acceleration is dominant over the gyroresonance for large grains, and can increase substantially grain velocities induced by gyroresonance acceleration. We quantify another stochastic acceleration mechanism arising from low-frequency Alfven waves. We discuss the range of applicability of the mechanisms and their implications.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

COSMIC-RAY STREAMING FROM SUPERNOVA REMNANTS AND GAMMA-RAY EMISSION FROM NEARBY MOLECULAR CLOUDS

High-energy gamma-ray emission has been detected recently from supernova remnants (SNRs) and their surroundings. The existence of molecular clouds near some of the SNRs suggests that the gamma rays originate predominantly from p-p interactions with cosmic rays (CRs) accelerated at a closeby SNR shock wave. Here we investigate the acceleration of CRs and the gamma-ray production in the cloud self-consistently by taking into account the interactions of the streaming instability and the background turbulence both at the shock front and in the ensuing propagation to the clouds. We focus on the later evolution of SNRs, when the conventional treatment of the streaming instability is valid but the magnetic field is enhanced due to Bell's current instability and/or the dynamo generation of magnetic field in the precursor region. We calculate the time dependence of the maximum energy of the accelerated particles. This result is then used to determine the diffusive flux of the runaway particles escaping the shock region, from which we obtain the gamma spectrum consistent with observations. Finally, we check the self-consistency of our results by comparing the required level of diffusion with the level of the streaming instability attainable in the presence of turbulence damping. The energy range of CRs subject to the streaming instability is able to produce the observed energy spectrum of gamma rays.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2012

Relation of astrophysical turbulence and magnetic reconnection

Astrophysical fluids are generically turbulent and this must be taken into account for most transport processes. We discuss how the preexisting turbulence modifies magnetic reconnection and how magnetic reconnection affects the MHD turbulent cascade. We show the intrinsic interdependence and interrelation of magnetic turbulence and magnetic reconnection, in particular, that strong magnetic turbulence in 3D requires reconnection and 3D magnetic turbulence entails fast reconnection. We follow the approach in Eyink et al.[Astrophys. J. 743, 51 (2011)] to show that the expressions of fast magnetic reconnection in A. Lazarian and E. T. Vishniac [Astrophys. J. 517, 700 (1999)] can be recovered if Richardson diffusion of turbulent flows is used instead of ordinary Ohmic diffusion. This does not revive, however, the concept of magnetic turbulent diffusion which assumes that magnetic fields can be mixed up in a passive way down to a very small dissipation scales. On the contrary, we are dealing the reconnection of dynamically important magnetic field bundles which strongly resist bending and have well defined mean direction weakly perturbed by turbulence. We argue that in the presence of turbulence the very concept of flux-freezing requires modification. The diffusion that arises from magnetic turbulence can be called reconnection diffusion as it based on reconnection of magnetic field lines. The reconnection diffusion has important implications for the continuous transport processes in magnetized plasmas and for star formation. In addition, fast magnetic reconnection in turbulent media induces the First order Fermi acceleration of energetic particles, can explain solar flares and gamma ray bursts. However, the most dramatic consequence of these developments is the fact that the standard flux freezing concept must be radically modified in the presence of turbulence.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2011

FAST MAGNETIC RECONNECTION AND SPONTANEOUS STOCHASTICITY

Magnetic field lines in astrophysical plasmas are expected to be frozen-in at scales larger than the ion gyroradius. The rapid reconnection of magnetic-flux structures with dimensions vastly larger than the gyroradius requires a breakdown in the standard Alfven flux-freezing law. We attribute this breakdown to ubiquitous MHD plasma turbulence with power-law scaling ranges of velocity and magnetic energy spectra. Lagrangian particle trajectories in such environments become 'spontaneously stochastic', so that infinitely many magnetic field lines are advected to each point and must be averaged to obtain the resultant magnetic field. The relative distance between initial magnetic field lines which arrive at the same final point depends upon the properties of two-particle turbulent dispersion. We develop predictions based on the phenomenological Goldreich and Sridhar theory of strong MHD turbulence and on weak MHD turbulence theory. We recover the predictions of the Lazarian and Vishniac theory for the reconnection rate of large-scale magnetic structures. Lazarian and Vishniac also invoked 'spontaneous stochasticity', but of the field lines rather than of the Lagrangian trajectories. More recent theories of fast magnetic reconnection appeal to microscopic plasma processes that lead to additional terms in the generalized Ohm's law, such as the collisionless Hall term. We estimate quantitatively the effect of such processes on the inertial-range turbulence dynamics and find them to be negligible in most astrophysical environments. For example, the predictions of the Lazarian and Vishniac theory are unchanged in Hall MHD turbulence with an extended inertial range, whenever the ion skin depth {delta}{sub i} is much smaller than the turbulent integral length or injection-scale L{sub i} .

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗