Chemistry in Magnetohydrodynamic Shock Waves in Diffuse Molecular Clouds

Details Chemistry in Magnetohydrodynamic Shock Waves in Diffuse Molecular Clouds Chemistry in Magnetohydrodynamic Shock Waves in Diffuse Molecular Clouds

Sep 1998

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998phdt........10p&link_type=abstract

Thesis (PHD). PRINCETON UNIVERSITY , Source DAI-B 59/03, p. 1156, Sep 1998, 124 pages.

Computer Science

1

Zeta Ophiuchi

Scientific paper

Absorption observations of the CH+ molecule with column densities of up to 1014 cm-2 in diffuse molecular clouds in many lines of sight are reviewed, and compared to the reddening and to abundances and velocity shifts of molecules like CH. Special attention is placed on the observations of the line of sight towards ς Ophiuchi where high quality observations of many chemical species are available. The problem of the required CH+ is described, and many formation mechanisms from the literature are reviewed, finding that none of them is particularly apt at describing the observations towards ς-Oph. Two fluid J-type shock models are studied as an alternative. The necessary conditions for their formation are discussed, and it is shown how they are expected to be present widely in the interstellar medium. Plane parallel numerical integrations, for the particular case in which the magnetic field is perpendicular to the shock velocity, are employed to study the region of phase-space of initial conditions that will produce 2 fluid shocks. A chemical network is developed and formation of key molecules like CH+, CH and OH, along with the excited roto-vibrational levels of H2, are studied under the shock dynamics. These models are then compared to the observations of the different lines of sight, showing they are capable of reproducing the features of the observations towards most of those clouds. An attempt to model the line of sight towards ς-Oph is done, finding that a shock with a shock speed vs = 9.0km/s going through a cloud with a density of nH = 14cm-3 with a magnetic field of B = 4.7μG does a reasonable job at satisfying most of the observations with the exception of the highest rotational excited states of molecular hydrogen for which observations are available. There is a small family of solutions capable of explaining the observed results which make specific predictions for the velocity profiles of the H2 lines of various excited levels. New observations with the Interstellar Medium Absorption Profile Spectrograph (IMAPS) camera would be useful in confirming or rejecting these models.

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