In order to study the temperature distribution of the extended gas within the Orion Kleinmann-Low nebula, we have mapped the emission by methyl cyanide (CH3CN) in its J=6_K-5_K, J=12_K-11_K, J=13_K-12_K, and J=14_K-13_K transitions at an average angu
lar resolution of ~10 arcsec (22 arcsec for the 6_K-5_K lines), as part of a new 2D line survey of this region using the IRAM 30m telescope. These fully sampled maps show extended emission from warm gas to the northeast of IRc2 and the distinct kinematic signatures of the hot core and compact ridge source components. We have constructed population diagrams for the four sets of K-ladder emission lines at each position in the maps and have derived rotational excitation temperatures and total beam-averaged column densities from the fitted slopes. In addition, we have fitted LVG model spectra to the observations to determine best-fit physical parameters at each map position, yielding the distribution of kinetic temperatures across the region. The resulting temperature maps reveal a region of hot (T > 350 K) material surrounding the northeastern edge of the hot core, whereas the column density distribution is more uniform and peaks near the position of IRc2. We attribute this region of hot gas to shock heating caused by the impact of outflowing material from active star formation in the region, as indicated by the presence of broad CH3CN lines. This scenario is consistent with predictions from C-shock chemical models that suggest that gas-phase methyl cyanide survives in the post-shock gas and can be somewhat enhanced due to sputtering of grain mantles in the passing shock front.
We present for the first time a detailed study of the properties of molecular gas in metal-rich environments such as early-type galaxies (ETGs). We have explored Photon-Dominated Region (PDR) chemistry for a wide range of physical conditions likely t
o be appropriate for these sources. We derive fractional abundances of the 20 most chemically reactive species as a function of the metallicity, as a function of the optical depth and for various volume number gas densities, Far-Ultra Violet (FUV) radiation fields and cosmic ray ionisation rates. We also investigate the response of the chemistry to the changes in $alpha-$element enhancement as seen in ETGs. We find that the fractional abundances of CS, H$_{2}$S, H$_{2}$CS, H$_{2}$O, H$_{3}$O$^{+}$, HCO$^{+}$ and H$_{2}$CN seem invariant to an increase of metallicity whereas C$^{+}$, CO, C$_{2}$H, CN, HCN, HNC and OCS appear to be the species most sensitive to this change. The most sensitive species to the change in the fractional abundance of $alpha-$elements are C$^{+}$, C, CN, HCN, HNC, SO, SO$_{2}$, H$_{2}$O and CS. Finally, we provide line brightness ratios for the most abundant species, especially in the range observable with ALMA. Discussion of favorable line ratios to use for the estimation of super-solar metallicities and $alpha$-elements are also provided.
