Related papers: Elemental nitrogen partitioning in dense interstel…
We present numerical computations and analytic scaling relations for interstellar ion-molecule gas phase chemistry down to very low metallicities ($ 10^{-3} \times$ solar), and/or up to high driving ionization rates. Relevant environments…
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 4.62 micron absorption band, observed along the line-of-sight towards various young stellar objects, is generally used as a qualitative indicator for energetic processing of interstellar ice mantles. This interpretation is based on the…
Because H2 formation on dust grain surfaces completely dominates gas-phase H2 formation in local molecular clouds, it is often assumed that gas-phase formation is never important. In fact, it is the dominant mechanism in a number of cases.…
In molecular clouds at temperatures as low as 10 K, all species except hydrogen and helium should be locked in the heterogeneous ice on dust grain surfaces. Nevertheless, astronomical observations have detected over 150 different species in…
This paper assesses the implications of a recent discovery (Jenkins 2009) that atomic oxygen is being depleted from diffuse interstellar gas at a rate that cannot be accounted for by its presence in silicate and metallic oxide particles. To…
Nitrogen oxides are thought to play a significant role as a nitrogen reservoir and to potentially participate in the formation of more complex species. Until now, only NO, N$_2$O and HNO have been detected in the interstellar medium. We…
HII regions, ionized nebulae where massive star formation has taken place, exhibit a wealth of emission lines that are the fundamental basis for estimating the chemical composition of the Universe. For more than 80 years, a discrepancy of…
Major components of ices on interstellar grains in molecular clouds - water and carbon oxides - occur at various optical depths. This implies that selective desorption mechanisms are at work. An astrochemical model of a contracting low-mass…
On galactic scales, the surface density of star formation appears to be well correlated with the surface density of molecular gas. This has lead many authors to suggest that there exists a causal relationship between the chemical state of…
(Abridged) The terrestrial planets, comets, and meteorites are significantly enriched in 15N compared to the Sun and Jupiter. While the solar and jovian nitrogen isotope ratio is believed to represent the composition of the protosolar…
Much of the dense gas in molecular clouds has a filamentary structure but the detailed structure and evolution of this gas is poorly known. We have observed 54 cores in infrared dark clouds (IRDCs) using N$_2$H$^+$ (1-0) and (3-2) to…
The physical conditions in a collapsing cloud can be traced by observations of molecular lines. To correctly interpret these observations the abundance distributions of the observed species need to be derived. The chemistry in a collapsing…
Starless molecular cores are natural laboratories for interstellar molecular chemistry research. The chemistry of ices in such objects was investigated with a three-phase (gas, surface, and mantle) model. We considered the center part of…
A recent observation of the exoplanet K2-18b sparked interest among scientists - large amounts of carbon dioxide and methane were detected in an H2-rich background atmosphere. If the planet is a hycean world (liquid water ocean +…
Observations of low mass protostars which probe small enough size scales to be within likely CO depletion regions show the highest [NH2D]/[NH3] ratios yet measured, of 4--33%. These molecular D/H ratios are higher than those measured on…
We present an extended version of the 2-phase gas-grain code NAUTILUS to the 3-phase modelling of gas and grain chemistry of cold cores. In this model, both the mantle and the surface are considered as chemically active. We also take into…
Many organic molecules have been observed in the interstellar medium thanks to advances in radioastronomy, and very recently the presence of urea was also suggested. While those molecules were observed, it is not clear what the mechanisms…
Ethanolamine (NH2CH2CH2OH) has recently been identified in the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027, situated in the SgrB2 complex in the Galactic center. However, its presence in other regions, and in particular in star-forming sites, is still…
Explaining the formation pathways of amides on ice-grain mantels is crucial to understanding the prebiotic chemistry in an interstellar medium. In this computational study, we explore different radical-neutral formation pathways for some of…