Related papers: Cosmic-ray-induced H$_2$ line emission: Astrochemi…
Low-energy cosmic-rays (CRs) control the thermo-chemical state and the coupling between gas and magnetic fields in dense molecular clouds, the sites of star-formation. However, current estimates of the low-energy CR spectrum ($E \lesssim 1$…
Molecular hydrogen being unobservable in cold molecular clouds, the column density measurements of molecular gas currently rely either on dust emission observation in the far-IR or on star counting. (Sub-)millimeter observations of numerous…
Context. A statistically significant sampling of H2 rotational excitation in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) is essential to identifying its excitation mechanisms and assessing the importance of H2 in the cooling of the gas and the…
Cosmic rays (CRs) at sub-TeV energies play a fundamental role in the chemical and dynamical evolution of molecular clouds, as they control the ionisation, dissociation, and excitation of H$_{2}$. Their characterisation is important both for…
A simple analytic model is presented to predict the near-IR H2 fluorescent line intensities emitted by diffuse interstellar clouds with a Plummer density profile. It is applicable to sightlines where (1) the column densities of H and H2…
Diffuse interstellar clouds show large abundances of H_3^+ which can be maintained only by a high ionization rate of H_2. Cosmic rays are the dominant ionization mechanism in this environment, so the large ionization rate implies a high…
We have used archival far-ultraviolet spectra from observations made by HST/STIS and FUSE to determine the column densities and rotational excitation temperatures for CO and H2, respectively, along the lines of sight to 23 Galactic O and B…
The central regions of many interacting and early-type spiral galaxies are actively forming stars. This process affects the physical and chemical properties of the local interstellar medium as well as the evolution of the galaxies. We…
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a poor tracer of H$_{2}$ in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM), where most of the carbon is not incorporated into CO molecules unlike the situation at higher extinctions. We present a novel, indirect method to…
Low-energy cosmic rays ($<1$ TeV) are a pivotal source of ionisation of the interstellar medium, where they play a central role in determining the gas chemical composition and drastically influence the formation of stars and planets. Over…
Cosmic rays are an essential ingredient in the evolution of the interstellar medium, as they dominate the ionisation of the dense molecular gas, where stars and planets form. However, since they are efficiently scattered by the galactic…
Observations of various molecular lines toward a disk region of a nearby galaxy are now feasible, and they are being employed as diagnostic tools to study star-formation activities there. However, the spatial resolution attainable for a…
Low-energy cosmic rays are a fundamental source of ionization for molecular clouds, influencing their chemical, thermal and dynamical evolution. The purpose of this work is to explore the possibility that a low-energy component of…
Observations of H3+ in the Galactic diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) have led to various surprising results, including the conclusion that the cosmic-ray ionization rate (zeta_2) is about 1 order of magnitude larger than previously…
Chemistry in diffuse molecular clouds relies primarily on rapid ion-molecule reactions. Formation of the initial ions, H$^+$ and H$_2^+$, is dominated by cosmic-ray ionization of H and H$_2$, making the cosmic-ray ionization rate (denoted…
The JWST and ALMA have detected emission lines from the ionized interstellar medium (ISM) in some of the first galaxies at $z \gtrsim 6$. These measurements present an opportunity to better understand galaxy assembly histories and may allow…
A proper modelling of the cosmic-ray ionisation rate within gas clouds is crucial to describe their chemical evolution accurately. However, this modelling is computationally demanding because it requires the propagation of cosmic rays…
We report on the effects of cosmic rays (CRs) on the abundance of CO in $\rm H_2$ clouds under conditions typical for star-forming galaxies in the Universe. We discover that this most important molecule for tracing H$_2$ gas is very…
Low energy cosmic-rays (CRs) are responsible for gas heating and ionization of interstellar clouds, which in turn introduces coupling to Galactic magnetic fields. So far the CR ionization rate (CRIR) has been estimated using indirect…
Observations of the emission of the carbon cycle species (C, C+ CO) are commonly used to diagnose gas properties in the interstellar medium but are significantly sensitive to the cosmic-ray ionization rate. The carbon-cycle chemistry is…