English

Organic complexity in protostellar disk candidates

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2019-07-19 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies

Abstract

We present ALMA observations of organic molecules towards five low-mass Class 0/I protostellar disk candidates in the Serpens cluster. Three sources (Ser-emb 1, Ser-emb 8, and Ser-emb 17) present emission of CH3OH as well as CH3OCH3, CH3OCHO, and CH2CO, while NH2CHO is detected in just Ser-emb 8 and Ser-emb 17. Detecting hot corino-type chemistry in three of five sources represents a high occurrence rate given the relative sparsity of these sources in the literature, and this suggests a possible link between protostellar disk formation and hot corino formation. For sources with CH3OH detections, we derive column densities of 10^{17}-10^{18} cm^{-2} and rotational temperatures of ~200-250 K. The CH3OH-normalized column density ratios of large, oxygen-bearing COMs in the Serpens sources and other hot corinos span two orders of magnitude, demonstrating a high degree of chemical diversity at the hot corino stage. Resolved observations of a larger sample of objects are needed to understand the origins of chemical diversity in hot corinos, and the relationship between different protostellar structural elements on disk-forming scales.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1907.07791,
  title  = {Organic complexity in protostellar disk candidates},
  author = {Jennifer B. Bergner and Rafael Martin-Domenech and Karin I. Oberg and Jes K. Jorgensen and Elizabeth Artur de la Villarmois and Christian Brinch},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1907.07791},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

Accepted to ACS Earth & Space Chemistry

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:23:46.646Z