Related papers: Genesis of Polyatomic Molecules in Dark Clouds: CO…
CO2 is one of the dominant components of the interstellar ice. Recent observations show CO2 exists more abundantly in polar (H2O-dominated) ice than in apolar (H2O-poor) ice. CO2 ice formation is primarily attributed to the reaction between…
We study the formation of giant dense cloud complexes and of stars within them by means of SPH numerical simulations of the mildly supersonic collision of gas streams (``inflows'') in the warm neutral medium (WNM). The resulting…
We study the evolution of molecular hydrogen on the grain surfaces and in the gas phase using both the rate equation (which tracks the average number of molecules) and the master equation (which tracks the expectation values of molecules).…
Our understanding of how molecular clouds form in the interstellar medium (ISM) would be greatly helped if we had a reliable observational tracer of the gas flows responsible for forming the clouds. Fine structure emission from singly…
We present a model for the formation of large organic molecules in dark clouds. The molecules are produced in the high density gas-phase that exists immediately after ice mantles are explosively sublimated. The explosions are initiated by…
We use molecular dynamics simulations in two dimensions to investigate the possibility that a core-softened potential can reproduce static and dynamic anomalies found experimentally in liquid water: (i) the increase in specific volume upon…
Carbon monoxide (CO) is the second most abundant molecule in the gas-phase of the interstellar medium. In dense molecular clouds, it is also present in the solid-phase as a constituent of the mixed water-dominated ices covering dust grains.…
One of the stumbling blocks for studying the evolution of interstellar molecules is the lack of adequate knowledge of the rate co-efficients of various reactions which take place in the Interstellar medium and molecular clouds. Some of the…
The formation of interstellar water has been commonly accepted to occur on the surfaces of icy dust grains in dark molecular clouds at low temperatures (10-20 K), involving hydrogenation reactions of oxygen allotropes. As a result of the…
Ice chemistry in the dense, cold interstellar medium (ISM) is probably responsible for the formation of interstellar complex organic molecules (COMs). Recent laboratory experiments performed at T=4 K have shown that irradiation of CO:N2 ice…
Molecular clouds are essentially made up of atomic and molecular hydrogen, which in spite of being the simplest molecule in the ISM plays a key role in the chemical evolution of molecular clouds. Since its formation time is very long, the…
Atoms and molecules, and in particular CO, are important coolants during the evolution of interstellar star-forming gas clouds. The presence of dust grains, which allow many chemical reactions to occur on their surfaces, strongly impacts…
In cold, dense astrophysical environments dust grains are mixed with molecular ices. Chemistry in those dust/ice mixtures is determined by diffusion and reaction of molecules and radicals. However, investigations of diffusion of…
Water (H2O) ice is an important solid constituent of many astrophysical environments. To comprehend the role of such ices in the chemistry and evolution of dense molecular clouds and comets, it is necessary to understand the freeze-out,…
The mass of molecular gas in an interstellar cloud is often measured using line emission from low rotational levels of CO, which are sensitive to the CO mass, and then scaling to the assumed molecular hydrogen H_2 mass. However, a…
The most usual tracer of molecular gas is line emission from CO. However, the reliability of that tracer has long been questioned in environments different from the Milky Way. We study the relationship between H2 and CO abundances using a…
During the evolution of diffuse clouds to molecular clouds, gas-phase molecules freeze out on surfaces of small dust particles to form ices. On dust surfaces, water is the main constituent of the icy mantle in which a complex chemistry is…
It has recently become possible to form molecules in ultracold gases of trapped alkali metal atoms. Once formed, the molecules may undergo elastic, inelastic and reactive collisions. Inelastic and reactive collisions are particularly…
In protoplanetary disks, CO$_2$ is solid ice beyond its snow line at $\sim 10 \rm AU$. Due to its high abundance, it contributes heavily to the collisional evolution in this region of the disk. For the first time, we carried out laboratory…
My thesis work aims to study the inter-relation between various physical and chemical conditions in a wide range of astrophysical environments. Our studied regions range from the super-hot regions (i.e., nebular, photon-dominated, or…