Related papers: The Deuterium Fractionation Timescale in Dense Clo…
Infrared Dark Clouds (IRDCs) are cold, dense regions that are usually found within Giant Molecular Clouds (GMCs). Ongoing star formation within IRDCs is typically still deeply embedded within the surrounding molecular gas. Characterising…
In dense starless and protostellar cores, the relative abundance of deuterated species to their non-deuterated counterparts can become orders of magnitude greater than in the local interstellar medium. This enhancement proceeds through…
Deuterated molecules are a useful diagnostic tool to probe the evolution and the kinematics in the earliest stages of star formation. Due to the low temperatures and high densities in the centre of pre-stellar cores, the deuterium fraction…
Deuterated molecules are good tracers of the evolutionary stage of star-forming cores. During the star formation process, deuterated molecules are expected to be enhanced in cold, dense pre-stellar cores and to deplete after protostellar…
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…
The total deuterium abundance [D/H] in the universe is set by just two processes: the creation of deuterium in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis at an abundance of [D/H]$=2.58\pm0.13\times10^{-5}$, and its destruction within stellar interiors.…
Context : Despite the low cosmic abundance of deuterium (D/H ~ 1e-5), large degrees of deuterium fractionation in molecules are observed in star forming regions with enhancements that can reach 13 orders of magnitude, which current models…
Aims. We aim to improve a previous model for the prediction of column densities and deuterium fractions of non- and singly deuterated methanol. Thereby, we try to identify crucial chemical and physical parameters, for which the study of…
Aims. We aim to develop a chemical model that contains a consistent description of spin-state chemistry in reactions involving chemical species with multiple deuterons. We apply the model to the specific case of deuterated ammonia, to…
The primordial abundance of deuterium (D/H) yields a measure of the density of baryons in the universe and is an important complement to determinations from cosmic microwave background (CMB) experiments. Indeed, the current small sample of…
Recent observations of the HDO/H$_2$O ratio toward protostars in isolated and clustered environments show an apparent dichotomy, where isolated sources show higher D/H ratios than clustered counterparts. Establishing which physical and…
Because of new telescopes that will dramatically improve our knowledge of the interstellar medium, chemical models will have to be used to simulate the chemistry of many regions with diverse properties. To make these models more robust, it…
Galactic destruction of primordial deuterium is inevitably linked through star formation to the chemical evolution of the Galaxy. The relatively high present gas content and low metallicity suggest only modest D-destruction. In concert with…
Context. Millimetric observations have measured high degrees of molecular deuteration in several species seen around low-mass protostars. The Herschel Space Telescope, launched in 2009, is now providing new measures of the deuterium…
We investigate the time evolution of dense cores identified in molecular cloud simulations using dendrograms, which are a common tool to identify hierarchical structure in simulations and observations of star formation. We develop an…
We are carrying out a physical and chemical study of the protostellar envelopes in a representative sample of IM Class 0 protostars. In our first paper (Crimier et al. 2010), we determined the physical structure (density-temperature radial…
Accurate measurements of interstellar deuterium abundances along lines of sight extending out to several hundred parsecs by FUSE and other instruments is making D/H a useful tool for understanding Galactic chemical evolution. We find that…
Properties of candidate stars, forming out of molecular clouds, depend on the ambient conditions of the parent cloud. We present a series of 2D and 3D simulations of fragmentation of molecular clouds in starburst regions as well as clouds…
The H3+ ion plays a key role in the chemistry of dense interstellar gas clouds where stars and planets are forming. The low temperatures and high extinctions of such clouds make direct observations of H3+ impossible, but lead to large…
We have undertaken a survey of N2H+ and N2D+ towards 31 low-mass starless cores using the IRAM 30m telescope. Our main objective has been to determine the abundance ratio of N2D+ and N2H+ towards the nuclei of these cores and thus to obtain…