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Gravitational Instability of a Turbulent Medium
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  • Letter
  • Published: 13 December 1952

Gravitational Instability of a Turbulent Medium

  • E. N. PARKER1 

Nature volume 170, page 1030 (1952)Cite this article

  • 394 Accesses

  • 11 Citations

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Abstract

CHANDRASEKHAR has derived in a very elegant manner1, from his theory of density fluctuations in an isotropic homogeneous turbulence field2, the generalization to a turbulent medium of Jeans's criterion for the stability against inhomogeneity of an infinite quiescent homogeneous medium. The expression which he obtains may be written: where λ is the critical length for stability, c is the speed of sound in the medium, θ the temperature, m the mass of a gas molecule, and ū2 the mean square velocity of the turbulence field.

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References

  1. Chandrasekhar, S., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 210, 18 (1951).

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  2. Chandrasekhar, S., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 210, 26 (1951).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  3. Spitzer, jun., L., and Savedoff, M., Astrophys. J., 111, 593 (1950).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mathematics and Astronomy, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah

    E. N. PARKER

Authors
  1. E. N. PARKER
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PARKER, E. Gravitational Instability of a Turbulent Medium. Nature 170, 1030 (1952). https://doi.org/10.1038/1701030a0

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  • Issue date: 13 December 1952

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1701030a0

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