The chemistry of transient microstructure in the diffuse interstellar medium

Transient microstructure in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) has been observed towards Galactic and extragalactic sources for decades, usually in lines of atoms and ions, and, more recently, in molecular lines. Evidently, there is a molecular component to the transient microstructure. In this p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 2005-03, Vol.357 (3), p.961-966
Main Authors: Bell, T. A., Viti, S., Williams, D. A., Crawford, I. A., Price, R. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ISM: molecules
ISM: structure
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Summary:Transient microstructure in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) has been observed towards Galactic and extragalactic sources for decades, usually in lines of atoms and ions, and, more recently, in molecular lines. Evidently, there is a molecular component to the transient microstructure. In this paper, we explore the chemistry that may arise in such microstructure. We use a photodissociation region (PDR) code to model the conditions of relatively high density, low temperature, very low visual extinction and very short elapsed time that are appropriate for these objects. We find that there is a well-defined region of parameter space where detectable abundances of molecular species might be found. The best matching models are those where the interstellar microstructure is young (104 cm−3).
ISSN:0035-8711
1365-2966
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08693.x