Combined PDF of a molecular cloud consisting of a turbulent medium (dotted curves) and uniformly distributed condensed cores (dashed-dotted curves). The cores are either critically stable (left) or in a state of collapse (right) where the density profiles are described using the corresponding approximations for Bonnor-Ebert spheres. The turbulent medium is modeled through a simple log-normal function and the pressure in the turbulent gas is assumed to be p_ext/k = 2 × 10⁴ K cm^-3. The spheres do not overlap and cover f_A = 40% of the area of the molecular cloud. The distributions are labeled with the assumed ratio ⟨Σ_b⟩/Σ(0) of the mean background ⟨Σ_b⟩ and the central mass surface density Σ(0) through a critically stable Bonnor-Ebert sphere. The scaled intrinsic non-background-averaged PDFs of Bonnor-Ebert spheres (see Fig. 4) are shown as solid gray lines. Also given are the corresponding power-law asymptotes at low (Eq. (34)) and at high (Eq. (39) and Eq. (40)) mass surface densities.