Observations of HDO are an important complement for studies of water, because they give strong constraints on the formation processes – grain
surfaces versus energetic process in the gas phase, e.g. in shocks. The HIFI observations of multiple transitions of HDO in Sgr B2(M) presented
here allow the determination of the HDO abundance throughout the envelope, which has not been possible before with ground-based observations
only. The abundance structure has been modeled with the spherical Monte Carlo radiative transfer code RATRAN, which also takes radiative
pumping by continuum emission from dust into account. The modeling reveals that the abundance of HDO rises steeply with temperature from
a low abundance (2.5 × 10−11) in the outer envelope at temperatures below 100 K through a medium abundance (1.5 × 10−9) in the inner
envelope/outer core at temperatures between 100 and 200 K, and finally a high abundance ( 3.5 × 10−9) at temperatures above 200 K in the hot
core