Tracing of magnetic fields with gradients: subsonic turbulence

Abstract

ABSTRACT The recent development of the velocity gradient technique shows the capability of the technique for tracing magnetic field morphology in diffuse interstellar gas and molecular clouds. In this paper, we perform a systematic numerical study of the performance of the velocity and synchrotron gradient for a wide range of magnetization in the subsonic environment. Addressing the studies of magnetic fields in atomic hydrogen, we also study the formation of velocity caustics in spectroscopic channel maps in the presence of thermal broadening. We show that the velocity caustics can be recovered when applied to the cold neutral medium and the gradient technique (GT) can reliably trace magnetic fields there. Finally, we discuss the changes in the anisotropy of observed structure functions when we apply to the analysis the procedures developed within the framework of GT studies.