Impeding Turbulence Decay in Self-gravitating Cloud Cores

Abstract Turbulence governs the fragmentation of molecular clouds and plays a pivotal role in star formation. The persistence of observed cloud turbulence suggests it does not decay significantly within the turnover timescale, implying a recurrent driving mechanism. Although ubiquitous self-gravity is a plausible driver, magnetohydrodynamic simulations by E. C. Ostriker et al. in 2001 demonstrated that self-gravity alone does not modify the global turbulence decay rate. In this study, we demonstrate that the dominant diffuse volume of a cloud dictates its overall decay rate, while individual dense cores can maintain near-zero decay rates. Crucially, this phenomenon is absent in control simulations excluding self-gravity. This discrepancy cannot be attributed to contamination of turbulent velocities by core contraction because most cores in our simulations remain in a quasi-equilibrium state. Our analysis reveals that the gravitational potential energy released during core formation—not necessarily driven by self-gravity but also by turbulent compression—is sufficient to sustain the observed turbulence levels within cores.