Meanings
- not comparableLacking one or more factors (such as mass or temperature) that would lead to interaction between molecules or particles; not quite virial.
Magnetic fields aligned more parallel in the subvirial cloud and more perpendicular in the denser, marginally bound cloud.
2016, Mikhail Klassen, Ralph E. Pudritz, Helen Kirk, “Filamentary flow and magnetic geometry in evolving cluster-forming molecular cloud clumps”, in arXiv1 more example
The brightest and most massive parts of many molecular cloud complexes appear close to virial equilibrium (Larson 1981), but detailed mapping of complexes shows that in many cases the less massive and filamentary clouds farther from the center of a complex tend to be subvirial : they have too little mass to bind the internal motions in their line widths.
2012, E. Falgarone, F. Boulanger, G. Duvert, Fragmentation of Molecular Clouds and Star Formation, →ISBN
Origin
Cite this entry
subvirial. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/subvirial
“subvirial.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/subvirial. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “subvirial,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/subvirial.
Source: subvirial on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.