Related papers: Nitrogen Isotopic Fractionation in Interstellar Am…
The variations of elemental abundance and their ratios along the Galactocentric radius result from the chemical evolution of the Milky Way disks. The $\rm ^{12}C/^{13}C$ ratio in particular is often used as a proxy to determine other…
Brown dwarfs serve as ideal laboratories for studying the atmospheres of giant exoplanets on wide orbits as the governing physical and chemical processes in them are nearly identical. Understanding the formation of gas giant planets is…
The 12C14N/12C15N and 12C14N/13C14N isotopic ratios have been determined in comets C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp), C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) and C/2003 K4 (LINEAR) at heliocentric distances of, respectively, 2.7, 3.7 and 2.6 AU. These ratios have also been…
Although ammonia is an abundant molecule commonly observed towards the dense interstellar medium, it has not yet been established whether its main formation route is from gas-phase ion-molecule reactions or grain-surface hydrogen additions…
The nitrogen chemical evolution during star and planet formation is still not fully understood. Ammonia (NH$_3$) is a key specie in the understanding of the molecular evolution in star-forming clouds and nitrogen isotope fractionation. In…
Nitrogen is one of the most abundant metals in the interstellar medium (ISM), and thus it constitutes an excellent test to study a variety of astrophysical environments, ranging from nova to active galactic nuclei. We present a detailed…
We present a complete census of the 14N/15N isotopic ratio in the most abundant N-bearing molecules towards the cold envelope of the protocluster OMC-2 FIR4, the best known Sun progenitor. To this scope, we analysed the unbiased spectral…
We report the first detection of C$^{15}$N in diffuse molecular gas from a detailed examination of CN absorption lines in archival VLT/UVES spectra of stars probing local diffuse clouds. Absorption from the C$^{15}$N isotopologue is…
We present the results of the Infrared Space Observatory Short Wavelength Spectrometer (ISO-SWS) observations of Jupiter related to ammonia. We focus on two spectral regions; the first one (the 10-micron region), probes atmospheric levels…
Context. The nitrogen isotopic ratio is considered an important diagnostic tool of the star formation process, and $N_2H^+$ is particularly important because it is directly linked to molecular nitrogen $N_2$. However, theoretical models…
Our aim is to determine the isotopic ratios {$^{12}$C/$^{13}$C}{} and {$^{14}$N/$^{15}$N}{} in a variety of comets and link these measurements to the formation and evolution of the solar system. The {$^{12}$C/$^{13}$C}{} and…
The abundance ratio of $^{14}$N$/^{15}$N is, in principle, a powerful tool for tracing stellar nucleosynthesis. This work aims to measure and analyze ($^{14}$N/$^{15}$N)$\times$($^{13}$C/$^{12}$C) and $^{14}$N$/^{15}$N abundance ratios in…
We show the first interferometric maps of the 14N/15N ratio obtained with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) towards the Solar-like forming protocluster OMC-2 FIR4. We observed N2H+, 15NNH+, N15NH+ (1-0), and N2D+ (2-1), from which…
Context: The $^{15}$N fractionation has been observed to show large variations among astrophysical sources, depending both on the type of target and on the molecular tracer used. These variations cannot be reproduced by the current chemical…
Sensitive measurements of the interstellar gas-phase oxygen abundance have revealed a slight oxygen deficiency ($\sim$ 15%) toward stars within 500 pc of the Sun as compared to more distant sightlines. Recent $FUSE$ observations of the…
We aim to determine the $^{14}$N/$^{15}$N and $^{12}$C/$^{13}$C ratios for HCN in six starless and prestellar cores and compare the results between the direct method using radiative transfer modeling and the indirect double isotope method…
We investigated the chemistry of nitrogen--containing species, principally isotopomers of CN, HCN, and HNC, in a sample of pre-protostellar cores. We used the IRAM 30 m telescope to measure the emission in rotational and hyperfine…
We report on the first measurements of the isotopic ratio 14N/15N in N2H+ toward a statistically significant sample of high-mass star forming cores. The sources belong to the three main evolutionary categories of the high-mass star…
We report the first detection of the submm emission from the 13C isotope of atomic carbon in the ISM. The F = 5/2 - 3/2 component of the ^3P_2 - ^3P_1 transition was observed with the CSO in a region ~4' S of Orion IRc2, near the western…
Excess levels of 15N isotopes which have been detected in primitive solar system materials are explained as a remnant of interstellar chemistry which took place in regions of the protosolar nebula. Chemical models of nitrogen fractionation…