J/A+A/633/A54       B0355+508 reduced spectra                  (Chantzos+, 2020)

The first steps of Interstellar Phosphorus Chemistry. Chantzos J., Rivilla V.M., Vasyunin A., Redaelli E., Bizzocchi L., Fontani F., Caselli P. <Astron. Astrophys. 633, A54 (2020)> =2020A&A...633A..54C 2020A&A...633A..54C (SIMBAD/NED BibCode)
ADC_Keywords: QSOs ; Interstellar medium ; Spectroscopy ; Radio lines Keywords: astrochemistry - line: identification - molecular processes - ISM: molecules Abstract: Phosphorus-bearing species are essential to the formation of life on Earth, however they have barely been detected in the interstellar medium. In particular, towards star-forming regions only PN and PO have been identified so far. Since only a small number of detections of P-bearing molecules are available, their chemical formation pathways are not easy to constrain and are thus highly debatable. An important factor still missing in the chemical models is the initial elemental abundance of phosphorus, that is, the depletion level of P at the start of chemical models of dense clouds. In order to overcome this problem, we study P-bearing species in diffuse and translucent clouds. In these objects phosphorus is expected to be mainly in the gas phase and therefore the elemental initial abundance needed in our chemical simulations corresponds to the cosmic one and is well constrained. For the study of P-bearing chemistry we used an advanced chemical model. We updated and significantly extended the P-chemistry network based on chemical databases and previous literature. We performed single-pointing observations with the IRAM 30m telescope in the 3mm range towards the line of sight to the strong continuum source B0355+508 aiming for the (2-1) transitions of PN, PO, HCP, and CP. This line of sight incorporates five diffuse and/or translucent clouds. The (2-1) transitions of the PN, PO, HCP, and CP were not detected. We report high signal-to-noise-ratio detections of the (1-0) lines of 13CO, HNC, and CN along with a first detection of C34S towards this line of sight. We have attempted to reproduce the observations of HNC, CN, CS, and CO in every cloud with our model by applying typical physical conditions for diffuse or translucent clouds. We find that towards the densest clouds with vLSR= -10, -17 km/s the best-fit model is given by the parameters (nH, AV, Tgas) = (300cm-3, 3mag, 40K). According to our best-fit model, the most abundant P-bearing species are HCP and CP (1e-10). The molecules PN, PO, and PH3 also show relatively high predicted abundances of 1e-11. We show that the abundances of these species are sensitive to visual extinction, cosmic-ray ionization rate, and the diffusion-to-desorption energy ratio on dust grains. The production of P-bearing species is favored towards translucent rather than diffuse clouds, where the environment provides a stronger shielding from the interstellar radiation. Based on our improved model, we show that the (1-0) transitions of HCP, CP, PN, and PO are expected to be detectable with estimated intensities of up to ∼200mK. Description: The observations of the HCP (2-1), CP (2-1), PN (2-1) and PO (2-1) transitions in the 3mm range were carried out at the IRAM 30m telescope located at Pico Veleta (Spain) towards the line of sight to the compact extragalactic quasar B0355+508. Objects: ------------------------------------------------------- RA (2000) DE Designation(s) ------------------------------------------------------- 03 59 29.75 +50 57 50.2 B0355+508 = QSO B0355+508 ------------------------------------------------------- File Summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FileName Lrecl Records Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ReadMe 80 . This file sp13co.dat 29 271 13CO spectrum towards B0355+508 spc34s.dat 29 237 C34S spectrum towards B0355+508 spcn.dat 29 279 CN spectrum towards B0355+508 sphnc.dat 29 223 CN spectrum towards B0355+508 spcp.dat 29 234 CP spectrum towards B0355+508 sphcp.dat 29 197 HCP spectrum towards B0355+508 sppn.dat 29 231 PN spectrum towards B0355+508 sppo.dat 29 268 PO spectrum towards B0355+508 cnallhyp.dat 29 1978 CN spectra towards B0355+508 pchemnet.dat 114 466 Chemical Network of two-body reactions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: sp*.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2- 17 E16.10 km/s Vlsr Velocity 19- 29 E11.4 K TMB Main beam temperature -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: cnallhyp.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4- 13 F10.3 MHz Freq Frequency 19- 29 E11.4 K TMB Main beam temperature -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: pchemnet.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3- 10 A8 --- R1 Reactant 1 20- 27 A8 --- R2 Reactant 2 40- 47 A8 --- P1 Product 1 57- 64 A8 --- P2 Product 2 74- 81 A8 --- P3 Product 3 91- 98 E8.2 --- alpha Rate coefficient, in s-1 or cm3/s units 101-105 F5.2 --- beta Rate coefficient, in s-1 or cm3/s units 108-114 F7.1 --- gamma Rate coefficient, in s-1 or cm3/s units -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgements: Johanna Chantzos, chantzos(at)mpe.mpg.de
(End) Patricia Vannier [CDS] 04-Nov-2019
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