Related papers: Deep Search For Molecular Oxygen in TW Hya
We model the temperature and chemical structure of molecular clouds as a function of depth into the cloud, assuming a cloud of constant density n illuminated by an external FUV (6 eV < E < 13.6 eV) flux G_0 (scaling factor in multiples of…
Ices are the main carriers of volatiles in protoplanetary disks and are crucial to our understanding of the chemistry that ultimately sets the organic composition of planets. The ERS program Ice Age on the JWST follows the ice evolution…
Molecular hydrogen (H$_2$) is by far the most abundant molecule in the Universe. However, due to the low emissivity of H$_2$, carbon monoxide (CO) is widely used instead to trace molecular gas in galaxies. The relative abundances of these…
I review recent observations of molecular gas in the halo of the Milky Way and in the Magellanic Clouds. Far-ultraviolet absorption line studies of molecular hydrogen (H_2) with ORFEUS and FUSE have unveiled the presence of a diffuse…
From the masses of planets orbiting our Sun, and relative elemental abundances, it is estimated that at birth our Solar System required a minimum disk mass of ~0.01 solar masses within ~100 AU of the star. The main constituent, gaseous…
The disk midplane temperature is potentially affected by the dust traps/rings. The dust depletion beyond the water snowline will cast a shadow. In this study, we adopt a detailed gas-grain chemical reaction network, and investigate the…
The depth-dependent abundance of both gas-phase and solid-state water within dense, quiescent, molecular clouds is important to both the cloud chemistry and gas cooling. Where water is in the gas phase, it's free to participate in the…
Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe, but its chemistry in the interstellar medium is still not well understood. In order to critically examine the entire oxygen budget, we attempt here initially to estimate the…
CO$_2$ is an important, stable, and abundant molecule in the Universe, but it is very difficult to detect because it has no observable pure rotational transitions. The unique sensitivity and resolution of the James Webb Space Telescope…
We present IRAM 30m and APEX telescope observations of CO(1-0) and CO(2-1) lines in 36 group-dominant early-type galaxies, completing our molecular gas survey of dominant galaxies in the Complete Local-volume Groups Sample. We detect CO…
Connecting the composition of planet-forming disks with that of gas giant exoplanet atmospheres, in particular through C/O ratios, is one of the key goals of disk chemistry. Small hydrocarbons like $\rm C_2H$ and $\rm C_3H_2$ have been…
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…
We seek to establish the presence and properties of gas in the circumstellar disk orbiting T Cha, a nearby (d~110 pc), relatively evolved (age ~5-7 Myr) yet actively accreting 1.5 Msun T Tauri star. We used the APEX 12 m radiotelescope to…
First results from a study into the abundance trends of oxygen in the Galactic thin and thick disks are presented. Oxygen abundances for 63 nearby F and G dwarf stars, based on very high resolution spectra ($R\sim215 000$) and high…
Formaldehyde (H$_2$CO) is an important precursor to organics like methanol (CH$_3$OH). It is important to understand the conditions that produce H$_2$CO and prebiotic molecules during star and planet formation. H$_2$CO possesses both…
Volatile molecules are critical to terrestrial planetary habitability, yet difficult to observe directly where planets form at the midplanes of protoplanetary disks. It is unclear whether the inner 1 AU of disks are volatile-poor or if this…
H$_2$CO ice on dust grains is an important precursor of complex organic molecules (COMs). H$_2$CO gas can be readily observed in protoplanetary disks and may be used to trace COM chemistry. However, its utility as a COM probe is currently…
We report on observations of CO(1-0) emission from the chemically young starburst galaxy Mrk 109. These observations were part of a study to constrain the O2/CO ratio in metal-deficient galaxies, which were motivated by theoretical work…
We investigated the chemical evolutions of gas phase and grain surface species across the Taurus molecular cloud-1 (TMC-1) filament from translucent phase to dense phase. By comparing observations with modeling results from an up-to-date…
CO is commonly used as a tracer of the total gas mass in both the interstellar medium and in protoplanetary disks. Recently there has been much debate about the utility of CO as a mass tracer in disks. Observations of CO in protoplanetary…