| 1. |
- Sewiło, Marta, et al.
(författare)
-
Complex Organic Molecules in Star-Forming Regions of the Magellanic Clouds
- 2019
-
Ingår i: ACS Earth and Space Chemistry. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 2472-3452. ; 3:10, s. 2088-2109
-
Forskningsöversikt (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC), gas-rich dwarf companions of the Milky Way, are the nearest laboratories for detailed studies on the formation and survival of complex organic molecules (COMs) under metal-poor conditions. To date, only methanol, methyl formate, and dimethyl ether have been detected in these galaxies-all three toward two hot cores in the N113 star-forming region in the LMC, the only extragalactic sources exhibiting complex hot-core chemistry. We describe a small and diverse sample of the LMC and SMC sources associated with COMs or hot-core chemistry, and compare the observations to theoretical model predictions. Theoretical models accounting for the physical conditions and metallicity of hot molecular cores in the Magellanic Clouds have been able to broadly account for the existing observations, but they fail to reproduce the dimethyl ether abundance by more than an order of magnitude. We discuss future prospects for research in the field of complex chemistry in the low-metallicity environment. The detection of COMs in the Magellanic Clouds has important implications for astrobiology. The metallicity of the Magellanic Clouds is similar to that of galaxies in the earlier epochs of the universe; thus, the presence of COMs in the LMC and SMC indicates that a similar prebiotic chemistry leading to the emergence of life, as it happened on Earth, is possible in low-metallicity systems in the earlier universe.
|
|
| 2. |
- Tang, X. D., et al.
(författare)
-
Kinetic temperature of massive star-forming molecular clumps measured with formaldehyde: IV. The ALMA view of N113 and N159W in the LMC
- 2021
-
Ingår i: Astronomy and Astrophysics. - : EDP Sciences. - 0004-6361 .- 1432-0746. ; 655
-
Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We mapped the kinetic temperature structure of two massive star-forming regions, N113 and N159W, in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We have used 1.6 (0.4 pc) resolution measurements of the para-H2CO JKaKc = 303-202, 322-221, and 321-220 transitions near 218.5 GHz to constrain RADEX non local thermodynamic equilibrium models of the physical conditions. The gas kinetic temperatures derived from the para-H2CO line ratios 322-221/303-202 and 321-220/303-202 range from 28 to 105 K in N113 and 29 to 68 K in N159W. Distributions of the dense gas traced by para-H2CO agree with those of the 1.3 mm dust and Spitzer 8.0 μm emission, but they do not significantly correlate with the Hα emission. The high kinetic temperatures (Tkin50 K) of the dense gas traced by para-H2CO appear to be correlated with the embedded infrared sources inside the clouds and/or young stellar objects in the N113 and N159W regions. The lower temperatures (Tkin < 50 K) were measured at the outskirts of the H2CO-bearing distributions of both N113 and N159W. It seems that the kinetic temperatures of the dense gas traced by para-H2CO are weakly affected by the external sources of the Hα emission. The non thermal velocity dispersions of para-H2CO are well correlated with the gas kinetic temperatures in the N113 region, implying that the higher kinetic temperature traced by para-H2CO is related to turbulence on a 0.4 pc scale. The dense gas heating appears to be dominated by internal star formation activity, radiation, and/or turbulence. It seems that the mechanism heating the dense gas of the star-forming regions in the LMC is consistent with that in Galactic massive star-forming regions located in the Galactic plane.
|
|
