S. S. R. Offner1, M. R. Krumholz2, C. F. McKee1,
3 & R. I. Klein3,4
1. Department of Physics, U. C. Berkeley
2. Hubble Fellow, Princeton University
3. Department of Astronomy, U. C. Berkeley
4. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
In this study we investigate pre-stellar core properties in hydrodynamic
self-gravitating isothermal AMR simulations with the code Orion, comparing
the cases where turbulence is continually driven and where it is allowed to
decay. We model observations of these cores in several tracer
molecules, and from the modeled observations we measure the linewidths of
individual cores, the linewidths of the surrounding gas, and the motions of
the cores relative to one another. Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests show that some
of these distributions are distinct in the driven and decaying runs, making
them potential tools for determining whether observed systems have
continued turbulent energy injection or not. We find that cores in the
driven environment have smaller velocity dispersions than cores in decaying
turbulence, in better agreement with observations. We also find that the
core-to-core velocity dispersion in the driven case is sub-virial, while in
the decaying it is virial.