Related papers: Elemental nitrogen partitioning in dense interstel…
Molecular nitrogen is one of the key species in the chemistry of interstellar clouds and protoplanetary disks and the partitioning of nitrogen between N and N2 controls the formation of more complex prebiotic nitrogen-containing species.…
Nitrogen-bearing molecules display variable isotopic fractionation levels in different astronomical environments such as in the interstellar medium or in the Solar System. Models of interstellar chemistry are unable to induce nitrogen…
Partitioning of elemental nitrogen in star-forming regions is not well constrained. Most nitrogen is expected to be partitioned among atomic nitrogen, molecular nitrogen (N2), and icy N-bearing molecules, such as ammonia (NH3) and N2.…
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 aim of the present work is to perform a comprehensive analysis of the interstellar chemistry of nitrogen, focussing on the gas-phase formation of the smallest polyatomic species and in particular nitrogen hydrides. We present a new…
Nitrogen-bearing molecules in cold molecular clouds exhibit a range of isotopic fractionation ratios and these molecules may be the precursors of $^{15}$N enrichments found in comets and meteorites. Chemical model calculations indicate that…
Reactions occurring on the ice-covered surfaces of interstellar dust grains are considered to be among the most important sources of complex species in the interstellar medium. Despite this, molecules such as cyanamide, NH2CN, are largely…
Nitrogen bearing species are common tracers of the physical conditions in a wide variety of objects, and most remarkably in dark clouds. The reservoir of gaseous nitrogen is expected to be atomic or molecular, but none of the two species…
Rate constants for the potentially important interstellar N(4S) + CH(X2{\Pi}r) reaction have been measured in a continuous supersonic flow reactor over the range 56 K < T < 296 K using the relative rate technique employing both the N(4S) +…
The abundance of nitrogen in the interstellar medium is a powerful probe of star for- mation processes over cosmological timescales. Since nitrogen can be produced both in massive and intermediate-mass stars with metallicity-dependent…
Icy interstellar dust grains are a source of complex organic molecule (COM) production, although their formation mechanisms are debated. Laboratory experiments show that atomic C deposited onto interstellar ice analogs can react with…
Nitrogen is the fifth most abundant element in the Universe, yet the gas-phase chemistry of N-bearing species remains poorly understood. Nitrogen hydrides are key molecules of nitrogen chemistry. Their abundance ratios place strong…
Context: Dark cloud chemical models usually predict large amounts of O2, often above observational limits. Aims: We investigate the reason for this discrepancy from a theoretical point of view, inspired by the studies of Jenkins and Whittet…
Solid state astrochemical reaction pathways have the potential to link the formation of small nitrogen-bearing species, like NH3 and HNCO, and prebiotic molecules, specifically amino acids. To date, the chemical origin of such small…
Characterizing the bulk atmosphere of a terrestrial planet is important for determining surface pressure and potential habitability. Molecular nitrogen (N$_2$) constitutes the largest fraction of Earth$'$s atmosphere and is likely to be a…
Observations have revealed that the elemental abundances of carbon and oxygen in the warm molecular layers of some protoplanetary disks are depleted compared to those is the interstellar medium by a factor of ~10-100. Meanwhile, little is…
Molecular hydrogen is the most abundant molecular species in the Universe. While no doubts exist that it is mainly formed on the interstellar dust grain surfaces, many details of this process remain poorly known. In this work, we focus on…
We analyze the behavior of N/O and C/O abundance ratios as a function of metallicity as gauged by O/H in large, extant Galactic and extragalactic H II region abundance samples. Numerical chemical evolution models are computed using…
Ice is ubiquitous in the interstellar medium. We model the formation of the main constituents of interstellar ices, including H2O, CO2 , CO, and CH3 OH. We strive to understand what physical or chemical parameters influence the final…
We present in this paper the main structural features and enthalpy details for the energy profiles of the title reactions, both for the exothermic (forward) path to NH$_{3}$ formation and for the endothermic (reverse) reaction to…