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Keywords

ISM: general
ISM: structure
MHD
radio lines: ISM
turbulence
Astrophysics - Galactic Astrophysics

How to Cite

Statistics of Centroids of Velocity. (2009). Revista Mexicana De Astrofísica Y Astronomía Serie De Conferencias, 36(1), 45-53. https://astronomia.unam.mx/journals/rmxac/article/view/2009rmxac..36...45e
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Abstract

We review the use of velocity centroids statistics to recover information of interstellar turbulence from observations. Velocity centroids have been used for a long time now to retrieve information about the scaling properties of the turbulent velocity field in the interstellar medium. We show that, while they are useful to study subsonic turbulence, they do not trace the statistics of velocity in supersonic turbulence, because they are highly influenced by fluctuations of density. We show also that for sub-Alfvénic turbulence (both supersonic and subsonic) two-point statistics (e.g. correlation functions or power-spectra) are anisotropic. This anisotropy can be used to determine the direction of the mean magnetic field projected in the plane of the sky.