Inadequate turbulent support in low-metallicity molecular clouds

• DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02440-3
• Publication Date: 2025-01-10T10:01:38Z
• Authors: Lingrui Lin; Zhi-Yu Zhang; Junzhi Wang; Padelis P. Papado...; Yong Shi; Yan Gong; Yan Sun; Yichen Sun; Thomas G. Bisbas; Donatella Romano; Di Li; Hauyu Baobab Liu; Keping Qiu; Lijie Liu; Gan Luo; Chao-Wei Tsai; Jingwen Wu; Siyi Feng; Bo Zhang
• Keywords: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); FOS: Physical sciences; Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies

Published in Nature Astronomy. Comments are welcome!<br/>The dynamic properties of molecular clouds are set by the interplay of their self-gravity, turbulence, external pressure and magnetic fields. Extended surveys of Galactic molecular clouds typically find that their kinetic energy ($E_{\rm k}$) counterbalances their self-gravitational energy ($E_{\rm g}$), setting their virial parameter $α_{\rm vir}=2E_{\rm k}/|E_{\rm g}|\approx1$. However, past studies either have been biased by the use of optically-thick lines or have been limited within the solar neighborhood and the inner Galaxy (Galactocentric radius $R_{\rm gc}<br/>