Chemistry and dynamics of the prestellar core L1544

Abstract

We aim to quantify the effect of chemistry on the infall velocity in the prestellar core L1544. Previous observational studies have found evidence for double-peaked line profiles for the rotational transitions of several molecules, which cannot be accounted for with the models presently available for the physical structure of the source, without ad hoc up-scaling of the infall velocity. We ran one-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations of the collapse of a core with L1544-like properties (in terms of mass and outer radius), using a state-of-the-art chemical model with a very large chemical network combined with an extensive description of molecular line cooling, determined via radiative transfer simulations, with the aim of determining whether these expansions of the simulation setup (as compared to previous models) can lead to a higher infall velocity. After running a series of simulations where the simulation was sequentially simplified, we found that the infall velocity is almost independent of the size of the chemical network or the approach to line cooling. We conclude that chemical evolution does not have a large impact on the infall velocity, and that the higher infall velocities that are implied by observations may be the result of the core being more dynamically evolved than what is now thought, or alternatively the average density in the simulated core is too low. However, chemistry does have a large influence on the lifetime of the core, which varies by about a factor of two across the simulations and grows longer when the chemical network is simplified. Therefore, although the model is subject to several sources of uncertainties, the present results clearly indicate that the use of a small chemical network leads to an incorrect estimate of the core lifetime, which is naturally a critical parameter for the development of chemical complexity in the precollapse phase.

12 pages incl. Appendix; 8 figures; accepted to A&A; replacement to reflect the change of the title of the paper post-acceptance

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Cited by in corpus (7)

• Similar levels of deuteration in the pre-stellar core L1544 and the protostellar core HH211
• Tracing the contraction of the pre-stellar core L1544 with HC${}^{17}$O${}^{+}$ $J$ = 1-0 emission
• Mapping Synthetic Observations to Prestellar Core Models: An Interpretable Machine Learning Approach
• Line emission from filaments in molecular clouds
• Gas phase Elemental abundances in Molecular cloudS (GEMS). X. Observational effects of turbulence on the chemistry of molecular clouds
• A low cosmic-ray ionisation rate in the prestellar core Ophiuchus/H-MM1. Mapping of the molecular ions ortho-H2D+, N2H+, and DCO+
• Impact of ice growth on the physical and chemical properties of dense cloud cores