Statistical Analysis of the HI Structure in Our Galaxy

We analyze the I-GALFA HI 21-cm line survey data in order to study the characteristics of interstellar turbulence in the neutral hydrogen medium in the Galaxy. We select several regions of 4.3 deg x 4.3 deg area near or far from the galactic plane both in the inner and outer Galaxy, transform the power of those regions into Fourier planes and derive one- and two-dimensional power spectra of HI emission. Our Fourier-analysis shows that the iso-power contours generally elongate along the latitude direction more in the outermost spiral arm, which indicates that the HI structure is "filamentary" and mainly aligned along the longitude. At high latitudes or in the interarm region, on the other hand, the iso-power contours are close to circles implying that the HI structures are randomly distributed or "clumpy". In the inner Galaxy, we derive two-dimensional spectra both far from and near the arm and explore the nature of the turbulence.