Chemical evolution of N2H+ in six massive star-forming regions

Abstract

To investigate how the abundance of N2H+ varies as massive clumps evolve, here we present a multi-wavelength study toward six molecular clouds. All of these clouds contain several massive clumps in different evolutionary stages of star formation. Using archival data of Herschel InfraRed Galactic Plane Survey (Hi-GAL), we made H2 column density and dust temperature maps of these regions by the spectral energy distribution (SED) method. We found all of the six clouds show distinct dust temperature gradients, ranging from 20 K to 30 K. This makes them good candidates to study chemical evolution of molecules (such as N2H+) in different evolutionary stages of star formation. Our molecular line data come from Millimeter Astronomy Legacy Team Survey at 90 GHz (MALT90). We made column density and then abundance maps of N2H+. We found that when the dust temperature is above 27 K, the abundance of N2H+ begins to decrease or reaches a plateau. We regard this is because that in the photodissociation regions (PDRs) around classical HII regions, N2H+ is destroyed by free electrons heavily. However, when the dust temperature is below 27 K, the abundance of N2H+ increases with dust temperature. This seems to be inconsistent with previous chemical models made in low-mass star-forming regions. In order to check out whether this inconsistency is caused by a different chemistry in high-mass star-forming clumps, higher angular resolution observations are necessary.

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