On the scale height of the molecular gas disc in Milky Way-like galaxies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT We study the relationship between the scale height of the molecular gas disc and the turbulent velocity dispersion of the molecular interstellar medium within a simulation of a Milky Way-like galaxy in the moving-mesh code arepo. We find that the vertical distribution of molecular gas can be described by a Gaussian function with a uniform scale height of ∼50 pc. We investigate whether this scale height is consistent with a state of hydrostatic balance between gravity and turbulent pressure. We find that the hydrostatic prediction using the total turbulent velocity dispersion (as one would measure from kiloparsec-scale observations) gives an overestimate of the true molecular disc scale height. The hydrostatic prediction using the velocity dispersion between the centroids of discrete giant molecular clouds (cloud–cloud velocity dispersion) leads to more accurate estimates. The velocity dispersion internal to molecular clouds is elevated by the locally enhanced gravitational field. Our results suggest that observations of molecular gas need to reach the scale of individual molecular clouds in order to accurately determine the molecular disc scale height.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".