The observation of correlated velocity structures in a translucent molecular cloud and implications for turbulence

Abstract

We present a formaldehyde map of the translucent high-latitude molecular cloud MBM 16. The molecular gas traced by the H2CO is located in spatially distinct large structures that exhibit velocity coherence on a scale of 0.5 pc. These structures are not pressure-confined and are probably not self-gravitating. They may be transient structures. If so, we suggest that they are produced by shear flows whose scale length is of order the size of the cloud.