Bill Coles (UCSD and ATNF)

The Ionized Interstellar Medium on Scales < 100 AU: Blobs, Clouds, or Spaghetti? - Bill Coles Colloquium

ATNF Marsfield Lecture Theatre

Abstract

The IISM can be studied directly with imaging spectroscopy on
relatively large scales, and less directly with various radio
propagation techniques on much smaller scales. The two "scale
windows" touch around 10 AU. In the small scale regime
it has been the practice to model the IISM as homogeneous,
isotropic, Kolmogorov turbulence. It is becoming apparent that
none of these assumptions is valid. I will discuss the evidence
for this suggestion and show some (relatively) new observations
suggesting that a model of flux ropes, not unlike the structure
of a coronal mass ejection, might be more appropriate. The case
is far from closed - this discussion will be characterized (like
much work on turbulence) by sparse observations, hand-waving
physics, and wildly-speculative interpretation.