168 research outputs found
Modelling the sulphur chemistry evolution in Orion KL
We study the sulphur chemistry evolution in the Orion KL along the gas and
grain phases of the cloud. We investigate the processes that dominate the
sulphur chemistry and to determine how physical and chemical parameters, such
as the final star mass and the initial elemental abundances, influence the
evolution of the hot core and of the surrounding outflows and shocked gas (the
plateau). We independently modelled the chemistry evolution of both components
using the time-dependent gas-grain model UCL_CHEM and considering two different
phase calculations. Phase I starts with the collapsing cloud and the depletion
of atoms and molecules onto grain surfaces. Phase II starts when a central
protostar is formed and the evaporation from grains takes place. We show how
the gas density, the gas depletion efficiency, the initial sulphur abundance,
the shocked gas temperature and the different chemical paths on the grains
leading to different reservoirs of sulphur on the mantles affect
sulphur-bearing molecules at different evolutionary stages. We also compare the
predicted column densities with those inferred from observations of the species
SO, SO2, CS, OCS, H2S and H2CS. The models that reproduce the observations of
the largest number of sulphur-bearing species are those with an initial sulphur
abundance of 0.1 times the sulphur solar abundance and a density of at least
n_H=5x10^6 cm^-3 in the shocked gas region. We conclude that most of the
sulphur atoms were ionised during Phase I, consistent with an inhomogeneous and
clumpy region where the UV interstellar radiation penetrates leading to sulphur
ionisation. We also conclude that the main sulphur reservoir on the ice mantles
was H2S. In addition, we deduce that a chemical transition currently takes
place in the shocked gas, where SO and SO2 gas-phase formation reactions change
from being dominated by O2 to being dominated by OH.Comment: 14 pages, 28 figures, 6 table
A line confusion-limited millimeter survey of Orion KL. III. Sulfur oxide species
We present a study of the sulfur-bearing species detected in a line
confusion-limited survey towards Orion KL performed with the IRAM 30m telescope
in the range 80-281 GHz. The study is part of an analysis of the line survey
divided into families of molecules. Our aim is to derive accurate physical
conditions and molecular abundances in the different components of Orion KL
from observed SO and SO2 lines. First we assumed LTE conditions obtain
rotational temperatures. We then used a radiative transfer model, assuming
either LVG or LTE excitation to derive column densities of these molecules in
the different components of Orion KL. We have detected 68 lines of SO, 34SO,
33SO, and S18O and 653 lines of SO2, 34SO2, 33SO2, SO18O and SO2 v2=1. We
provide column densities for all of them and also upper limits for the column
densities of S17O, 36SO, 34S18O, SO17O and 34SO2 v2=1 and for several
undetected sulfur-bearing species. In addition, we present 2'x2' maps around
Orion IRc2 of SO2 transitions with energies from 19 to 131 K and also maps with
four transitions of SO, 34SO and 34SO2. We observe an elongation of the gas
along the NE-SW direction. An unexpected emission peak appears at 20.5 km/s in
most lines of SO and SO2. A study of the spatial distribution of this emission
feature shows that it is a new component ~5" in diameter, which lies ~4" west
of IRc2. We suggest the emission from this feature is related to shocks
associated to the BN object. The highest column densities for SO and SO2 are
found in the high-velocity plateau (a region dominated by shocks) and in the
hot core. These values are up to three orders of magnitude higher than the
results for the ridge components. We also find high column densities for their
isotopologues in both components. Therefore, we conclude that SO and SO2 are
good tracers, not only of regions affected by shocks, but also of regions with
warm dense gas.Comment: Paper (ref AA/2013/21285) accepted for publication by A&A. 52 Pages,
26 figures, 13 table
Extended warm gas in Orion KL as probed by methyl cyanide
In order to study the temperature distribution of the extended gas within the
Orion Kleinmann-Low nebula, we have mapped the emission by methyl cyanide
(CH3CN) in its J=6_K-5_K, J=12_K-11_K, J=13_K-12_K, and J=14_K-13_K transitions
at an average angular resolution of ~10 arcsec (22 arcsec for the 6_K-5_K
lines), as part of a new 2D line survey of this region using the IRAM 30m
telescope. These fully sampled maps show extended emission from warm gas to the
northeast of IRc2 and the distinct kinematic signatures of the hot core and
compact ridge source components. We have constructed population diagrams for
the four sets of K-ladder emission lines at each position in the maps and have
derived rotational excitation temperatures and total beam-averaged column
densities from the fitted slopes. In addition, we have fitted LVG model spectra
to the observations to determine best-fit physical parameters at each map
position, yielding the distribution of kinetic temperatures across the region.
The resulting temperature maps reveal a region of hot (T > 350 K) material
surrounding the northeastern edge of the hot core, whereas the column density
distribution is more uniform and peaks near the position of IRc2. We attribute
this region of hot gas to shock heating caused by the impact of outflowing
material from active star formation in the region, as indicated by the presence
of broad CH3CN lines. This scenario is consistent with predictions from C-shock
chemical models that suggest that gas-phase methyl cyanide survives in the
post-shock gas and can be somewhat enhanced due to sputtering of grain mantles
in the passing shock front.Comment: 24 pages, 20 figures, accepted for publication in A&
A combined IRAM and Herschel/HIFI study of cyano(di)acetylene in Orion KL: tentative detection of DC3N
We present a study of cyanoacetylene (HC3N) and cyanodiacetylene (HC5N) in
Orion KL, through observations from two line surveys performed with the IRAM
30m telescope and the HIFI instrument on board the Herschel telescope. The
frequency ranges covered are 80-280 GHz and 480-1906 GHz. We model the observed
lines of HC3N, HC5N, their isotopologues (including DC3N), and vibrational
modes, using a non-LTE radiative transfer code. To investigate the chemical
origin of HC3N and DC3N in Orion KL, we use a time-dependent chemical model. We
detect 40 lines of the ground state of HC3N and 68 lines of its 13C
isotopologues. We also detect 297 lines of six vibrational modes of this
molecule (nu_7, 2nu_7, 3nu_7, nu_6, nu_5, and nu_6+nu_7) and 35 rotational
lines of the ground state of HC5N. We report the first tentative detection of
DC3N in a giant molecular cloud with a DC3N/HC3N abundance ratio of 0.015. We
provide column densities and isotopic and molecular abundances. We also perform
a 2x2" map around Orion IRc2 and we present maps of HC3N lines and maps of
lines of the HC3N vibrational modes nu_6 and nu_7. In addition, a comparison of
our results for HC3N with those in other clouds allows us to derive
correlations between the column density, the FWHM, the mass, and the luminosity
of the clouds. The high column densities of HC3N obtained in the hot core, make
this molecule an excellent tracer of hot and dense gas. In addition, the large
frequency range covered reveals the need to consider a temperature and density
gradient in the hot core in order to obtain better line fits. The high D/H
ratio (comparable to that obtained in cold clouds) that we derive suggests a
deuterium enrichment. Our chemical models indicate that the possible deuterated
HC3N present in Orion KL is formed during the gas-phase. This fact provides new
hints concerning the processes leading to deuteration.Comment: 50 pages, 33 figures, 13 tables. Accepted for publication in A&
Erratum: Surface chemistry in photodissociation regions (vol 591, A52, 2016)
Laboratory astrophysics and astrochemistr
Evolution of Chemistry in the envelope of Hot Corinos (ECHOS). I. Extremely young sulphur chemistry in the isolated Class 0 object B335
Within the project Evolution of Chemistry in the envelope of HOt corinoS
(ECHOS), we present a study of sulphur chemistry in the envelope of the Class 0
source B335 through observations in the spectral range 7, 3, and 2 mm. We have
modelled observations assuming LTE and LVG approximation. We have also used the
code Nautilus to study the time evolution of sulphur species. We have detected
20 sulphur species with a total gas-phase S abundance similar to that found in
the envelopes of other Class 0 objects, but with significant differences in the
abundances between sulphur carbon chains and sulphur molecules containing
oxygen and nitrogen. Our results highlight the nature of B335 as a source
especially rich in sulphur carbon chains unlike other Class 0 sources. The low
presence or absence of some molecules, such as SO and SO+, suggests a chemistry
not particularly influenced by shocks. We, however, detect a large presence of
HCS+ that, together with the low rotational temperatures obtained for all the S
species (<15 K), reveals the moderate or low density of the envelope of B335.
We also find that observations are better reproduced by models with a sulphur
depletion factor of 10 with respect to the sulphur cosmic elemental abundance.
The comparison between our model and observational results for B335 reveals an
age of 10t10 yr, which highlights the particularly early
evolutionary stage of this source. B335 presents a different chemistry compared
to other young protostars that have formed in dense molecular clouds, which
could be the result of accretion of surrounding material from the diffuse cloud
onto the protostellar envelope of B335. In addition, the analysis of the
SO2/C2S, SO/CS, and HCS+/CS ratios within a sample of prestellar cores and
Class 0 objects show that they could be used as good chemical evolutionary
indicators of the prestellar to protostellar transition
Gas phase Elemental abundances in Molecular cloudS (GEMS) VI. A sulphur journey across star-forming regions: study of thioformaldehyde emission
In the context of the IRAM 30m Large Program GEMS, we present a study of
thioformaldehyde in several starless cores located in star-forming filaments of
Taurus, Perseus, and Orion. We investigate the influence of the environmental
conditions on the abundances of these molecules in the cores, and the effect of
time evolution. We have modelled the observed lines of H2CS, HDCS, and D2CS
using the radiative transfer code RADEX. We have also used the chemical code
Nautilus to model the evolution of these species depending on the
characteristics of the starless cores. We derive column densities and
abundances for all the cores. We also derive deuterium fractionation ratios,
Dfrac, to determine and compare the evolutionary stage between different parts
of each star-forming region. Our results indicate that the north region of the
B213 filament in Taurus is more evolved than the south, while the north-eastern
part of Perseus presents an earlier evolutionary stage than the south-western
zone. Model results also show that Dfrac decreases with the cosmic-ray
ionisation rate, while it increases with density and with the degree of sulphur
depletion. In particular, we only reproduce the observations when the initial
sulphur abundance in the starless cores is at least one order of magnitude
lower than the solar elemental sulphur abundance. The progressive increase in
HDCS/H2CS and D2CS/H2CS with time makes these ratios powerful tools for
deriving the chemical evolutionary stage of starless cores. However, they
cannot be used to derive the temperature of these regions, since both ratios
present a similar evolution at two different temperature ranges (7-11 K and
15-19 K). Regarding chemistry, (deuterated) thioformaldehyde is mainly formed
through gas-phase reactions (double-replacement and neutral-neutral
displacement reactions), while surface chemistry plays an important role as a
destruction mechanism.Comment: 31 pages, 26 figure
Parameterizing the interstellar dust temperature
The temperature of interstellar dust particles is of great importance to
astronomers. It plays a crucial role in the thermodynamics of interstellar
clouds, because of the gas-dust collisional coupling. It is also a key
parameter in astrochemical studies that governs the rate at which molecules
form on dust. In 3D (magneto)hydrodynamic simulations often a simple expression
for the dust temperature is adopted, because of computational constraints,
while astrochemical modelers tend to keep the dust temperature constant over a
large range of parameter space. Our aim is to provide an easy-to-use parametric
expression for the dust temperature as a function of visual extinction () and to shed light on the critical dependencies of the dust temperature on
the grain composition. We obtain an expression for the dust temperature by
semi-analytically solving the dust thermal balance for different types of
grains and compare to a collection of recent observational measurements. We
also explore the effect of ices on the dust temperature. Our results show that
a mixed carbonaceous-silicate type dust with a high carbon volume fraction
matches the observations best. We find that ice formation allows the dust to be
warmer by up to 15% at high optical depths ( mag) in the
interstellar medium. Our parametric expression for the dust temperature is
presented as , where is in units of the Draine (1978) UV fieldComment: 16 pages, 17 figures, 4 tables. Accepted for publication in A&A.
Version 2: the omission of factor 0.921 in equation 4 is correcte
Bench-to-bedside review : targeting antioxidants to mitochondria in sepsis
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Gas phase Elemental abundances in Molecular cloudS (GEMS) VII. Sulfur elemental abundance
Gas phase Elemental abundances in molecular CloudS (GEMS) is an IRAM 30m
large program aimed at determining the elemental abundances of carbon (C),
oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S) in a selected set of prototypical
star-forming filaments. In particular, the elemental abundance of S remains
uncertain by several orders of magnitude and its determination is one of the
most challenging goals of this program. We have carried out an extensive
chemical modeling of the fractional abundances of CO, HCO, HCN, HNC, CS,
SO, HS, OCS, and HCS to determine the sulfur depletion toward the 244
positions in the GEMS database. These positions sample visual extinctions from
A 3 mag to 50 mag, molecular hydrogen densities ranging from a
few 10~cm to 310~cm, and T 1035 K.
Most of the positions in Taurus and Perseus are best fitted assuming early-time
chemistry, t=0.1 Myr, (0.51)10 s,
and [S/H]1.510. On the contrary, most of the positions in
Orion are fitted with t=1~Myr and 10 s.
Moreover, 40% of the positions in Orion are best fitted assuming the
undepleted sulfur abundance, [S/H]1.510. Our results
suggest that sulfur depletion depends on the environment. While the abundances
of sulfur-bearing species are consistent with undepleted sulfur in Orion, a
depletion factor of 20 is required to explain those observed in Taurus
and Perseus. We propose that differences in the grain charge distribution in
the envelopes of the studied clouds might explain these variations. The shocks
associated with past and ongoing star formation could also contribute to
enhance [S/H] in Orion.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figures, Astronomy and Astrophysics, in pres
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