Related papers: Astrochemistry as a tool to follow the protostella…
Theory predicts, and observations confirm, that the column density ratio of a molecule containing D to its counterpart containing H can be used as an evolutionary tracer in the low-mass star formation process. Since it remains unclear if…
Understanding the chemical evolution in star-forming cores is a necessary pre-condition to correctly assess physical conditions when using molecular emission. We follow the evolution of chemistry and molecular line profiles through the…
(Abridged) Aims & Methods. A two-dimensional, semi-analytical model is presented that follows, for the first time, the chemical evolution from a collapsing molecular cloud (a pre-stellar core) to a protostar and circumstellar disk. The…
Stars form from the gravitational collapse of dense molecular cloud cores. In the protostellar phase, mass accretes from the core onto a protostar, likely through an accretion disk, and it is during this phase that the initial masses of…
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…
The detection of organic molecules with increasing complexity and potential biological relevance is opening the possibility to understand the formation of the building blocks of life in the interstellar medium. One of the families of…
The past century of interstellar dust has brought us from first ignoring it to finding that it plays an important role in the evolution of galaxies. Current observational results in our galaxy provide a complex physical and chemical…
Chemical models have been developed over the years by astrophysicists to study the pro- cesses at play in the various environments of the interstellar medium (ISM) that define the chemical composition of the gas and the dust. These…
Glycolaldehyde, a sugar-related interstellar prebiotic molecule, has recently been detected in two star-forming regions, Sgr B2(N) and G31.41+0.31. The detection of this new species increased the list of complex organic molecules detected…
Stars like our Sun and planets like our Earth form in dense regions within interstellar molecular clouds, called pre-stellar cores (PSCs). PSCs provide the initial conditions in the process of star and planet formation. In the past 15…
Methanol is a key species in astrochemistry since it is the most abundant organic molecule in the ISM and is thought to be the mother molecule of many complex organic species. Estimating the deuteration of methanol around young protostars…
Disentangling the different stages of the star-formation process, in particular in the high-mass regime, is a challenge in astrophysics. Chemical clocks could help alleviating this problem, but their evolution strongly depends on many…
This paper provides a brief summary and overview of the astrochemistry associated with the formation of stars and planets. It is aimed at new researchers in the field to enable them to obtain a quick overview of the landscape and key…
(English) In this lecture I discuss recent progress in the understanding of the chemical evolution of protoplanetary disks that resemble our Solar system during the first ten million years. At the verge of planet formation, strong…
(Abridged) Protostellar systems evolve from prestellar cores, through the deeply embedded stage and then disk-dominated stage, before they end up on the main sequence. Knowing how much time a system spends in each stage is crucial for…
Stellar systems are often formed through the collapse of dense molecular clouds which, in turn, return copious amounts of atomic and molecular material to the interstellar medium. An in-depth understanding of chemical evolution during this…
The determination of chemical abundances in star-forming galaxies and the study of their evolution on cosmological timescales are powerful tools for understanding galaxy formation and evolution. This contribution presents the latest results…
Even today in our Galaxy, stars form from gas cores in a variety of environments, which may affect the properties of resulting star and planetary systems. Here we study the role of pressure, parameterized via ambient clump mass surface…
We present a review of observational studies of high-mass star formation, based mainly on our own research. It includes surveys of high-mass star-forming regions in various molecular lines and in continuum, investigations of filamentary…
Extremely high deuteration of several molecules have been observed around low mass protostars since a decade. Among them, formaldehyde and methanol present particularly high deuteration, with observations of abundant doubly and triply…