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Register a new userReconstructing the history of water ice formation from HDO/H2O and D2O/HDO ratios in protostellar cores
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Recent interferometer observations have found that the D2O/HDO abundance ratio is higher than that of HDO/H2O by about one order of magnitude in the vicinity of low-mass protostar NGC 1333-IRAS 2A, where water ice has sublimated. Previous laboratory and theoretical studies show that the D2O/HDO ice ratio should be lower than the HDO/H2O ice ratio, if HDO and D2O ices are formed simultaneously with H2O ice. In this work, we propose that the observed feature, D2O/HDO > HDO/H2O, is a natural consequence of chemical evolution in the early cold stages of low-mass star formation: 1) majority of oxygen is locked up in water ice and other molecules in molecular clouds, where water deuteration is not efficient, and 2) water ice formation continues with much reduced efficiency in cold prestellar/protostellar cores, where deuteration processes are highly enhanced due to the drop of the ortho-para ratio of H2, the weaker UV radiation field, etc. Using a simple analytical model and gas-ice astrochemical simulations tracing the evolution from the formation of molecular clouds to protostellar cores, we show that the proposed scenario can quantitatively explain the observed HDO/H2O and D2O/HDO ratios. We also find that the majority of HDO and D2O ices are likely formed in cold prestellar/protostellar cores rather than in molecular clouds, where the majority of H2O ice is formed. This work demonstrates the power of the combination of the HDO/H2O and D2O/HDO ratios as a tool to reveal the past history of water ice formation in the early cold stages of star formation and when the enrichment of deuterium in the bulk of water occurred. Further observations are needed to explore if the relation, D2O/HDO > HDO/H2O, is common in low-mass protostellar sources.
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The HDO/H2O ratio in interstellar gas is often used to draw conclusions on the origin of water in star-forming regions and on Earth. In cold cores and in the outer regions of protoplanetary disks, gas-phase water comes from photodesorption of water ice. We present fitting formulae for implementation in astrochemical models using photodesorption efficiencies for all water ice isotopologues obtained using classical molecular dynamics simulations. We investigate if the gas-phase HDO/H2O ratio reflects that present in the ice or whether fractionation can occur during photodesorption. Probabilities for the top four monolayers are presented for photodesorption of X (X=H,D) atoms, OX radicals, and X2O and HDO molecules following photodissociation of H2O, D2O, and HDO in H2O amorphous ice at temperatures from 10-100 K. Isotope effects are found for all products: (1) H atom photodesorption probabilities from H2O ice are larger than those for D atom photodesorption from D2O ice by a factor of 1.1; the ratio of H and D photodesorbed upon HDO photodissociation is a factor of 2. This process will enrich the ice in deuterium atoms over time; (2) the OD/OH photodesorption ratio upon D2O and H2O photodissociation is on average a factor of 2, but the ratio upon HDO photodissociation is almost constant at unity for all temperatures; (3) D atoms are more effective in kicking out neighbouring water molecules than H atoms. However, the ratio of the photodesorbed HDO and H2O molecules is equal to the HDO/H2O ratio in the ice, therefore, there is no isotope fractionation upon HDO and H2O photodesorption. Nevertheless, the enrichment of the ice in D atoms due to photodesorption can over time lead to an enhanced HDO/H2O ratio in the ice, and, when photodesorbed, also in the gas. The extent to which the ortho/para ratio of H2O can be modified by the photodesorption process is also discussed. (Abridged)
We present theoretical predictions of the rotational line emission of deuterated water in low-mass protostar collapsing envelopes. The model accounts for the density and temperature structure of the envelope, according the inside-out collapse framework. The deuterated water abundance profile is approximated by a step function, with a low value in the cold outer envelope and a higher value in the inner envelope where the grain mantles evaporate. The two abundances are the two main parameters of the modeling, along with the temperature at which the mantles evaporate. We report line flux predictions for a 30 and 5 L$_odot$ source luminosity respectively. We show that ground based observations are capable to constrain the three parameters of the model in the case of bright low-mass protostars (L$>$10 L$_{odot}$), and that no space based observations, like for example HSO observations, are required in this case. On the contrary, we show that the study of low-luminosity sources (L$<$10 L$_{odot}$), assuming the same HDO abundance profile, requires too much integration time to be carried out either with available ground-based telescopes or with the HIFI instrument on board HSO. For these sources, only the large interferometer ALMA will allow to constrain the HDO abundance.
Context. Millimetric observations have measured high degrees of molecular deuteration in several species seen around low-mass protostars. The Herschel Space Telescope, launched in 2009, is now providing new measures of the deuterium fractionation of water, the main constituent of interstellar ices. Aims. We aim at theoretically studying the formation and the deuteration of water, which is believed to be formed on interstellar grain surfaces in molecular clouds. Methods. We used our gas-grain astrochemical model GRAINOBLE, which considers the multilayer formation of interstellar ices. We varied several input parameters to study their impact on water deuteration. We included the treatment of ortho- and para-states of key species, including H2, which affects the deuterium fractionation of all molecules. The model also includes relevant laboratory and theoretical works on the water formation and deuteration on grain surfaces. In particular, we computed the transmission probabilities of surface reactions using the Eckart model, and we considered ice photodissociation following molecular dynamics simulations. Results. The use of a multilayer approach allowed us to study the influence of various parameters on the abundance and the deuteration of water. Deuteration of water is found to be very sensitive to the ortho-to-para ratio of H2 and to the total density, but it also depends on the gas/grain temperatures and the visual extinction of the cloud. Since the deuteration is very sensitive to the physical conditions, the comparison with sub-millimetric observation towards the low-mass protostar IRAS 16293 allows us to suggest that water ice is formed together with CO2 in molecular clouds with limited density, whilst formaldehyde and methanol are mainly formed in a later phase, where the condensation becomes denser and colder.
We develop a chemical evolution model in order to study the star formation history of the Milky Way. Our model assumes that the Milky Way is formed from a closed box-like system in the inner regions, while the outer parts of the disc experience some accretion. Unlike the usual procedure, we do not fix the star formation prescription (e.g. Kennicutt law) in order to reproduce the chemical abundance trends. Instead, we fit the abundance trends with age in order to recover the star formation history of the Galaxy. Our method enables one to recover with unprecedented accuracy the star formation history of the Milky Way in the first Gyrs, in both the inner (R<7-8kpc) and outer (R>9-10kpc) discs as sampled in the solar vicinity. We show that, in the inner disc, half of the stellar mass formed during the thick disc phase, in the first 4-5 Gyr. This phase was followed by a significant dip in the star formation activity (at 8-9 Gyr) and a period of roughly constant lower level star formation for the remaining 8 Gyr. The thick disc phase has produced as many metals in 4 Gyr as the thin disc in the remaining 8 Gyr. Our results suggest that a closed box model is able to fit all the available constraints in the inner disc. A closed box system is qualitatively equivalent to a regime where the accretion rate, at high redshift, maintains a high gas fraction in the inner disc. In such conditions, the SFR is mainly governed by the high turbulence of the ISM. By z~1 it is possible that most of the accretion takes place in the outer disc, while the star formation activity in the inner disc is mostly sustained by the gas not consumed during the thick disc phase, and the continuous ejecta from earlier generations of stars. The outer disc follows a star formation history very similar to that of the inner disc, although initiated at z~2, about 2 Gyr before the onset of the thin disc formation in the inner disc.
Extremely large deuteration of several molecules has been observed towards prestellar cores and low-mass protostars for a decade. New observations performed towards low-mass protostars suggest that water presents a lower deuteration in the warm inner gas than in the cold external envelope. We coupled a gas-grain astrochemical model with a one-dimension model of collapsing core to properly follow the formation and the deuteration of interstellar ices as well as their subsequent evaporation in the low-mass protostellar envelopes with the aim of interpreting the spatial and temporal evolutions of their deuteration. The astrochemical model follows the formation and the evaporation of ices with a multilayer approach and also includes a state-of-the-art deuterated chemical network by taking the spin states of H$_2$ and light ions into account. Because of their slow formation, interstellar ices are chemically heterogeneous and show an increase of their deuterium fractionation towards the surface. The differentiation of the deuteration in ices induces an evolution of the deuteration within protostellar envelopes. The warm inner region is poorly deuterated because it includes the whole molecular content of ices while the deuteration predicted in the cold external envelope scales with the highly deuterated surface of ices. We are able to reproduce the observed evolution of water deuteration within protostellar envelopes but we are still unable to predict the super-high deuteration observed for formaldehyde and methanol. Finally, the extension of this study to the deuteration of complex organics (COMs), important for the prebiotic chemistry, shows a good agreement with the observations, suggesting that we can use the deuteration to retrace their mechanisms and their moments of formation.
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