Related papers: Water, O2 and Ice in Molecular Clouds
In this series of papers we study the structure of the atomic to molecular transition in the giant atomic-molecular complexes that are the repositories of most molecular gas in galaxies, with the ultimate goal of attaining a better…
Early results from the Herschel Space Observatory revealed the water cation H2O+ to be an abundant ingredient of the interstellar medium. Here we present new observations of the H2O and H2O+ lines at 1113.3 and 1115.2 GHz using the Herschel…
In dense clouds of the interstellar medium, dust grains are covered by ice mantles, dominated by H$_2$O. CO and CO$_2$ are common ice components observed in infrared spectra, while infrared inactive N$_2$ is expected to be present in the…
In recent decades, significant attention has been dedicated to analytical and observational studies of the atomic hydrogen (HI) to molecular hydrogen (H2) transition in the interstellar medium. We focussed on the Draco diffuse cloud to gain…
Recent observations of the ground state transition of HDO at 464 GHz towards the protoplanetary disk of DM Tau have detected the presence of water vapor in the regions just above the outer disk midplane (Ceccarelli et al 2005). In the…
We report observations of molecular oxygen (O$_2$) rotational transitions at 487 GHz, 774 GHz, and 1121 GHz toward Orion Peak A. The O2 lines at 487 GHz and 774 GHz are detected at velocities of 10-12 km/s with line widths 3 km/s; however,…
The gas at the surfaces of molecular clouds in galaxies is heated and dissociated by photons from young stars both near and far. HI resulting from the dissociation of molecular hydrogen H2 emits hyperfine line emission at 21 cm, and warmed…
In diffuse interstellar clouds the chemistry that leads to the formation of the oxygen bearing ions OH+, H2O+, and H3O+ begins with the ionization of atomic hydrogen by cosmic rays, and continues through subsequent hydrogen abstraction…
We investigate to what degree local physical and chemical conditions are related to the evolutionary status of various objects in star-forming media. rho Oph A displays the entire sequence of low-mass star formation in a small volume of…
The mobility of atoms, molecules and radicals in icy grain mantles regulate ice restructuring, desorption, and chemistry in astrophysical environments. Interstellar ices are dominated by H2O, and diffusion on external and internal (pore)…
We study the H2O chemistry in star-forming environments under the influence of a central X-ray source and a central far ultraviolet (FUV) radiation field. The gas-phase water chemistry is modeled as a function of time, hydrogen density and…
We examine the formation of molecular gas behind shocks in atomic gas using a chemical/dynamical model, particular emphasis is given to constraints the chemistry places on the dynamical evolution. The most important result of this study is…
We investigate the correlation between OH and H2 column densities in diffuse Galactic clouds, in order to identify potential molecular tracers of interstellar H2. For this, we analyse near-UV spectra extracted from the ESO/VLT archives…
We investigate molecular evolution from a molecular cloud core to a first hydrostatic core in three spatial dimensions. We perform a radiation hydrodynamic simulation in order to trace fluid parcels, in which molecular evolution is…
The desorption characteristics of molecules on interstellar dust grains are important for modelling the behaviour of molecules in icy mantles and, critically, in describing the solid-gas interface. In this study, a series of laboratory…
Observations of star forming environments revealed that the abundances of some deuterated interstellar molecules are markedly larger than the cosmic D/H ratio of 10-5. Possible reasons for this pointed to grain surface chemistry. How- ever,…
The 1-50 GHz GBT PRIMOS data contains ~50 molecular absorption lines observed in diffuse and translucent clouds located in the Galactic Center, Bar, and spiral arms in the line-of-sight to Sgr B2(N). We measure the column densities and…
It is important to understand the origin of molecular line intensities and chemical composition in the molecular-cloud scale in the Galactic sources because it serves as a benchmark to compare with the chemical compositions of extragalactic…
The VUV absorption cross sections of most molecular solids present in interstellar ice mantles with the exception of H2O, NH3, and CO2 have not been reported yet. Models of ice photoprocessing depend on the VUV absorption cross section of…
At the low temperatures of interstellar dust grains, it is well established that surface chemistry proceeds via diffusive mechanisms of H atoms weakly bound (physisorbed) to the surface. Until recently, however, it was unknown whether atoms…