Related papers: CH$_3$OH as a User-Friendly Density Probe: Calibra…
To understand physical properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) on various scales, we investigate it at parsec resolution on the kiloparsec scale. Here, we report on the sub-kpc scale Gas Density Histogram (GDH) of the Milky Way. The GDH…
We use new HCN(1-0) data from the ALMOND (ACA Large-sample Mapping Of Nearby galaxies in Dense gas) survey to trace the kpc-scale molecular gas density structure and CO(2-1) data from PHANGS-ALMA to trace the bulk molecular gas across 25…
The recent detection of gas-phase methanol (CH$_3$OH) lines in the disc of TW Hya by Walsh et al. provided the first observational constraints on the complex O-bearing organic content in protoplanetary discs. The emission has a ring-like…
Protoplanetary disks around young stars are the sites of planet formation. While the dust mass can be estimated using standard methods, determining the gas mass - and thus the amount of material available to form giant planets - has proven…
Due to our vantage point in the disk of the Galaxy, its 3D structure is not directly accessible. However, knowing the spatial distribution, e.g. of atomic and molecular hydrogen gas is of great importance for interpreting and modelling…
The Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) at the center of our Galaxy is the best template to study star formation processes under extreme conditions, similar to those in high-redshift galaxies. We observed on-the-fly maps of para-H$_{2}$CO…
The total mass estimate of molecular clouds suffers from the uncertainty in the H$_2$-CO conversion factor, the so-called $X_{\rm CO}$ factor, which is used to convert the $^{12}$CO (1--0) integrated intensity to the H$_2$ column density.…
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), the closest star forming galaxy with low metallicity, provides an ideal laboratory to study star formation in such an environment. The classical dense molecular gas thermometer NH3 is rarely available in a…
Chemical diversity of the gas in low-mass protostellar cores is widely recognized. In order to explore its origin, a survey of chemical composition toward 36 Class 0/I protostars in the Perseus molecular cloud complex, which are selected in…
We present an analysis of archival ISO observations of pure-rotational lines of H2 in three pointings in the central 3 parsecs of the Galaxy: toward the Southwest region and Northeast region of the Galactic center Circumnuclear Disk, and…
CH2 transitions between 68 and 71 GHz were first detected toward the Orion-KL and W51 Main SFRs. Given their upper level energies of 225 K, they were thought to arise in dense, hot molecular cores near newly formed stars. However, this has…
Local star-forming galaxies show properties that are thought to differ from galaxies in the early Universe. Among them, the ionizing stellar populations and the gas geometry make the recipes designed to derive chemical abundances from…
(Abridged) We study the response of the gas to energetic processes associated with high-mass star formation and compare it with studies on low- and intermediate-mass young stellar objects (YSOs) using the same methods. The far-IR line…
We present the results of N2H+(1-0) observations of 35 dense molecular cloud cores from the northern and southern hemispheres where massive stars and star clusters are formed. Line emission has been detected in 33 sources, for 28 sources…
We have started a measurement campaign of numerous methanol isotopologs in low-lying torsional states in order to provide extensive line lists for radio astronomical observations from an adequate spectroscopic model and to investigate how…
Stars form within molecular clouds, so characterizing the physical states of molecular clouds is key in understanding the process of star formation. Cloud structure and stability is frequently assessed using metrics including the virial…
Upcoming facilities such as the Herschel Space Observatory or ALMA will deliver a wealth of molecular line observations of young stellar objects (YSOs). Based on line fluxes, chemical abundances can then be estimated by radiative transfer…
The abundance of cold molecular gas plays a crucial role in models of galaxy evolution. While deep spectroscopic surveys of CO emission lines have been a primary tool for measuring this abundance, the difficulty of these observations has…
The cosmic-ray ionization rate (CRIR, $\zeta_2$) is one of the key parameters controlling the formation and destruction of various molecules in molecular clouds. However, the current most commonly used CRIR tracers, such as H$_3^+$, OH$^+$,…
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…