English

Evolutions of CH$_3$CN abundance in molecular clumps

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2021-11-03 v1

Abstract

To investigate the effects of massive star evolution on surrounding molecules, we select 9 massive clumps previously observed with the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope and the Submillimeter Array (SMA) telescope. Based on the observations of APEX, we obtain luminosity to mass ratio Lclump_{\rm clump}/Mclump_{\rm clump} that range from 10 to 154 L\sun_{\sun}/M\sun_{\sun}, where some of them embedded Ultra Compact (UC) H\,{\footnotesize II} region. Using the SMA, CH3_3CN (12K_{\rm K}--11K_{\rm K}) transitions were observed toward 9 massive star-forming regions. We derive the CH3_3CN rotational temperature and column density using XCLASS program, and calculate its fractional abundance. We find that CH3_3CN temperature seems to increase with the increase of Lclump_{\rm clump}/Mclump_{\rm clump} when the ratio is between 10 to 40 L\sun_{\sun}/M\sun_{\sun}, then decrease when Lclump_{\rm clump}/Mclump_{\rm clump} \ge 40 L\sun_{\sun}/M\sun_{\sun}. Assuming the CH3_3CN gas is heated by radiation from the central star, the effective distance of CH3_3CN relative to the central star is estimated. The distance range from \sim 0.003 to \sim 0.083 pc, which accounts for \sim 1/100 to \sim 1/1000 of clump size. The effective distance increases slightly as Lclump_{\rm clump}/Mclump_{\rm clump} increases (Reff_{\rm eff} \sim (Lclump_{\rm clump}/Mclump_{\rm clump})0.5±0.2^{0.5\pm0.2}). Overall, the CH3_3CN abundance is found to decrease as the clumps evolve, e.g., XCH3CN_{\rm CH_3CN} \sim (Lclump_{\rm clump}/Mclump_{\rm clump})1.0±0.7^{-1.0\pm0.7}. The steady decline of CH3_3CN abundance as the clumps evolution can be interpreted as a result of photodissociation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2104.06810,
  title  = {Evolutions of CH$_3$CN abundance in molecular clumps},
  author = {Zhen-Zhen He and Guang-Xing Li and Chao Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.06810},
  year   = {2021}
}