Search

Glycolaldehyde (HOCH2CHO) is the most straightforward sugar detected in the Interstellar Medium (ISM) and participates in the formation pathways of molecules fundamental to life, red such as ribose and derivatives. Although detected in several regions of the ISM, its formation route is still debated and its abundance cannot be explained only by reactions in the gas phase. This work explores a new gas-phase formation mechanism for glycolaldehyde and compares the energy barrier reduction when the same route happens on the surface of amorphous ices. The first step of the mechanism involves the formation of a carbon–carbon bond between formaldehyde (H2CO) and the formyl radical (HCO), with an energy barrier of 27 kJ mol−1 (gas-phase). The second step consists of barrierless hydrogen addition. Density functional calculations under periodic boundary conditions were applied to study this reaction path on 10 different amorphous ice surfaces through an Eley–Rideal type mechanism. It was found that the energy barrier is reduced on average by 49 per cent, leading in some cases to a 100 per cent reduction. The calculated adsorption energy of glycolaldehyde suggests that it can be promptly desorbed to the gas phase after its formation. This work, thus contributes to explaining the detected relative abundances of glycolaldehyde and opens a new methodological framework for studying the formation routes for Complex Organic Molecules (COMs) in interstellar icy grains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hydrogen cyanide (HCN) and its isomer hydrogen isocyanide (HNC) play an important role in molecular cloud chemistry and the formation of more complex molecules. We investigate here the impact of protostellar shocks on the HCN and HNC abundances from high-sensitivity IRAM 30 m observations of the prototypical shock region L1157-B1 and the envelope of the associated Class 0 protostar, as a proxy for the pre-shock gas. The isotopologues H12CN, HN12C, H13CN, HN13C, HC15N, H15NC, DCN, and DNC were all detected towards both regions. Abundances and excitation conditions were obtained from radiative transfer analysis of molecular line emission under the assumption of local thermodynamical equilibrium. In the pre-shock gas, the abundances of the HCN and HNC isotopologues are similar to those encountered in dark clouds, with an HCN/HNC abundance ratio ≈1 for all isotopologues. A strong D-enrichment (D/H ≈ 0.06) is measured in the pre-shock gas. There is no evidence of 15N fractionation neither in the quiescent nor in the shocked gas. At the passage of the shock, the HCN and HNC abundances increase in the gas phase in different manners so that the HCN/HNC relative abundance ratio increases by a factor 20. The gas-grain chemical and shock model uclchem allows us to reproduce the observed trends for a C-type shock with pre-shock density n (H) =  |$10^5\hbox{cm$^{-3}$}$| and shock velocity |$V_\mathrm{ s}= 40\hbox{kms$^{-1}$}$|⁠. We conclude that the HCN/HNC variations across the shock are mainly caused by the sputtering of the grain mantle material in relation with the history of the grain ices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using APEX-1 and APEX-2 observations, we have detected and studied the rotational lines of the HC3N molecule (cyanoacetylene) in the powerful outflow/hot molecular core G331.512−0.103. We identified 31 rotational lines at J levels between 24 and 39; 17 of them in the ground vibrational state v  = 0 (9 lines corresponding to the main C isotopologue and 8 lines corresponding to the 13C isotopologues), and 14 in the lowest vibrationally excited state v 7 = 1. Using local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE)-based population diagrams for the beam-diluted v  = 0 transitions, we determined T exc = 85 ± 4 K and N (HC3N) = (6.9 ± 0.8) × 1014 cm−2, while for the beam-diluted v 7 = 1 transitions we obtained T exc = 89 ± 10 K and N (HC3N) = (2 ± 1) × 1015 cm−2. Non-LTE calculations using H2 collision rates indicate that the HC3N emission is in good agreement with LTE-based results. From the non-LTE method, we estimated T kin ≃90 K, n (H2) ≃ 2 × 107 cm−3 for a central core of 6 arcsec in size. A vibrational temperature in the range from 130 to 145 K was also determined, values which are very likely lower limits. Our results suggest that rotational transitions are thermalized, while infrared radiative pumping processes are probably more efficient than collisions in exciting the molecule to the vibrationally excited state v 7 = 1. Abundance ratios derived under LTE conditions for the 13C isotopologues suggest that the main formation pathway of HC3N is C2H2 + CN → HC3N + H. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Evidence is mounting that the small bodies of our Solar system, such as comets and asteroids, have at least partially inherited their chemical composition from the first phases of the Solar system formation. It then appears that the molecular complexity of these small bodies is most likely related to the earliest stages of star formation. It is therefore important to characterize and to understand how the chemical evolution changes with solar-type protostellar evolution. We present here the Large Program 'Astrochemical Surveys At IRAM' (ASAI). Its goal is to carry out unbiasedmillimetre line surveys between 80 and 272 GHz of a sample of 10 template sources, which fully cover the first stages of the formation process of solar-type stars, from pre-stellar cores to the late protostellar phase. In this paper, we present an overview of the surveys and results obtained from the analysis of the 3 mm band observations. The number of detected main isotopic species barely varies with the evolutionary stage and is found to be very similar to that of massive star-forming regions. The molecular content in O- and C-bearing species allows us to define two chemical classes of envelopes, whose composition is dominated by either (a) a rich content in O-rich complex organic molecules, associated with hot corino sources, or (b) a rich content in hydrocarbons, typical of warm carbon-chain chemistry sources. Overall, a high chemical richness is found to be present already in the initial phases of solar-type star formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the Large Program Astrochemical Surveys At IRAM, we have used the IRAM 30 m telescope to lead a systematic search for the emission of rotational transitions of P-bearing species between 80 and 350 GHz towards L1157-B1, a shock position in the solar-type star-forming region L1157. We report the detection of several transitions of PN and, for the first time, of pre-biotic molecule PO. None of these species are detected towards the driving protostar of the outflow L1157-mm. Analysis of the line profiles shows that PN arises from the outflow cavity, where SiO, a strong shock tracer, is produced. Radiative transfer analysis yields an abundance of 2.5 × 10−9 and 0.9 × 10−9 for PO and PN, respectively. These results imply a strong depletion (≈100) of phosphorus in the quiescent cloud gas. Shock modelling shows that atomic N plays a major role in the chemistry of PO and PN. The relative abundance of PO and PN brings constraints both on the duration of the pre-shock phase, which has to be ∼106 yr, and on the shock parameters. The maximum temperature in the shock has to be larger than 4000 K, which implies a shock velocity of 40 km s−1. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formamide (NH2CHO) has been proposed as a pre-biotic precursor with a key role in the emergence of life on Earth. While this molecule has been observed in space, most of its detections correspond to high-mass star-forming regions. Motivated by this lack of investigation in the low-mass regime, we searched for formamide, as well as isocyanic acid (HNCO), in 10 low- and intermediate-mass pre-stellar and protostellar objects. The present work is part of the IRAM Large Programme ASAI (Astrochemical Surveys At IRAM), which makes use of unbiased broad-band spectral surveys at millimetre wavelengths. We detected HNCO in all the sources and NH2CHO in five of them. We derived their abundances and analysed them together with those reported in the literature for high-mass sources. For those sources with formamide detection, we found a tight and almost linear correlation between HNCO and NH2CHO abundances, with their ratio being roughly constant - between 3 and 10 - across 6 orders of magnitude in luminosity. This suggests the two species are chemically related. The sources without formamide detection, which are also the coldest and devoid of hot corinos, fall well off the correlation, displaying a much larger amount of HNCO relative to NH2CHO. Our results suggest that, while HNCO can be formed in the gas-phase during the cold stages of star formation, NH2CHO forms most efficiently on the mantles of dust grains at these temperatures, where it remains frozen until the temperature rises enough to sublimate the icy grain mantles. We propose hydrogenation of HNCO as a likely formation route leading to NH2CHO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]