Polytropes: Implications for Molecular Clouds and Dark Matter

Abstract

Polytropic models are reasonably successful in acounting for the observed features of molecular clouds. Multi-pressure polytropes include the various pressure components that are important in molecular clouds, whereas composite polytropes provide a representation for the core halo structure. Small, very dense (n~10^{11} cm^{-3}) molecular clouds have been proposed as models for both dark matter and for extreme scattering events. Insofar as the equation of state in these clouds can be represented by a single polytropic relation (pressure varies as a power of the density), such models conflict with observation. It is possible to contrive composite polytropes that do not conflict with observation, but whether the thermal properties of the clouds are consistent with such structure remains to be determined.