A Fractal Origin for the Mass Spectrum of Interstellar Clouds

Abstract

Interstellar molecular clouds have power-law size L and mass M distributions of the form n(L )dL \ and where M P L i is also a power law. These relations are shown to L ~aL dL n(M)dM \ M~aM dM, result from the fractal and scale-free nature of interstellar gas with power indices that are independent of distance. The results are and for interstellar fractal dimension