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Is Alfvén’s Critical Ionization Velocity Important at the Galactic Centre?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 April 2016

Jennifer Nicholls
Jennifer Nicholls*
Affiliation:
Research Centre for Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006
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Abstract

If the relative velocity between a plasma and a molecular cloud impinging on it exceeds the Alfvén critical ionization velocity, then the surface of the molecular cloud can be ionized. This phenomenon has been used to model some of the ionized regions at the Galactic Centre. A review of the mechanism behind Alfven’s critical ionization phenomenon is presented here, and its use at the Galactic Centre is discussed.

Type
Galactic and Stellar
Information
Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , 1992 , pp. 128 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Astronomical Society of Australia 1992

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