Using deuterated H3+ and other molecular species to understand the formation of stars and planets

Abstract

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 abundances of H2D+ and D2H+ which are very useful probes of the early stages of star and planet formation. Maps of H2D+ and D2H+ pure rotational line emission toward star-forming regions show that the strong deuteration of H3+ is the result of near-complete molecular depletion of CNO-bearing molecules onto grain surfaces, which quickly disappears as cores warm up after stars have formed. In the warmer parts of interstellar gas clouds, H3+ transfers its proton to other neutrals such as CO and N2, leading to a rich ionic chemistry. The abundances of such species are useful tracers of physical conditions such as the radiation field and the electron fraction. Recent observations of HF line emission toward the Orion Bar imply a high electron fraction, and we suggest that observations of OH+ and H2O+ emission may be used to probe the electron density in the nuclei of external galaxies.

Proceedings of the H3+ centennial symposium, to be published in RSPTA (editor: T. Oka)

References in corpus (14)

• The distance to the Orion Nebula
• Ultraviolet Survey of CO and H_2 in Diffuse Molecular Clouds: The Reflection of Two Photochemistry Regimes in Abundance Relationships
• [CII] 158$\mu$m Emission and Metallicity in PDRs
• Survey of ortho-H2D+(1_{1,0}-1_{1,1}) in dense cloud cores
• Resolving the chemistry in the disk of TW Hydrae I. Deuterated species
• The Distribution of Ortho-H_2D+(1_1,0 - 1_1,1) in L1544: Tracing the Deuteration Factory in Prestellar Cores
• Herschel/HIFI Observations of Hydrogen Fluoride Toward Sagittarius B2(M)
• HIFI detection of HF in the carbon star envelope IRC +10216
• Evidence for Multiple Pathways to Deuterium Enhancements in Protoplanetary Disks
• Detection of HF emission from the Orion Bar
• The Ionization Fraction in the DM Tau Protoplanetary Disk
• The JCMT Spectral Legacy Survey
• Discovery of Hydrogen Fluoride in the Cloverleaf Quasar at z = 2.56
• Using H3+ and H2D+ as probes of star-forming regions

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Herschel/SPIRE Sub-millimeter Spectra of Local Active Galaxies
• Origin of hydrogen fluoride emission in the Orion Bar: An excellent tracer for CO-dark H2 gas clouds
• The first results from the Herschel-HIFI mission