Thermal Damping of Weak Magnetosonic Turbulence in the Interstellar Medium

We present a generic mechanism for the thermal damping of compressive waves in the interstellar medium (ISM), occurring due to radiative cooling. We solve for the dispersion relation of magnetosonic waves in a two-fluid (ion-neutral) system in which density- and temperature-dependent heating and coo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Astrophysical journal 2021-11, Vol.922 (1), p.10
Main Authors: Silsbee, Kedron, Ivlev, Alexei V., Gong, Munan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Astrophysics
Cooling
Cut off wavelength
Damping
Dispersion
Fluid flow
Heating and cooling
Interstellar atomic gas
Interstellar dynamics
Interstellar matter
Interstellar medium
Interstellar phases
Mathematical models
Numerical simulations
Radiative cooling
Temperature dependence
Turbulence
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Summary:We present a generic mechanism for the thermal damping of compressive waves in the interstellar medium (ISM), occurring due to radiative cooling. We solve for the dispersion relation of magnetosonic waves in a two-fluid (ion-neutral) system in which density- and temperature-dependent heating and cooling mechanisms are present. We use this dispersion relation, in addition to an analytic approximation for the nonlinear turbulent cascade, to model dissipation of weak magnetosonic turbulence. We show that in some ISM conditions, the cutoff wavelength for magnetosonic turbulence becomes tens to hundreds of times larger when the thermal damping is added to the regular ion-neutral damping. We also run numerical simulations, which confirm that this effect has a dramatic impact on cascade of compressive wave modes.
ISSN:0004-637X
1538-4357
DOI:10.3847/1538-4357/ac1e87