Séminaire IPAG

---

Precursor Prebiotic Chemistry in Early Low-mass Star and Planet Formation

jeudi 12 décembre 2024 - 11h00

Samantha Scibelli - NRAO
--- 
Before low-mass (M ≤ few solar masses) stars like our Sun form, they are conceived inside cold (~10 K) and dense (> 10^5 cm^-3) regions of gas and dust known as starless or dynamically evolved prestellar cores. It is essential to study the limits of chemical complexity in prestellar cores because they set the initial conditions of star and planet formation. Interstellar molecules with at least one carbon atom and six total atoms, known to astronomers as “complex organic” molecules or COMs, are of particular interest to trace throughout the star and planet formation process because they are thought to be the precursors of prebiotic species such as amino acids, DNA and RNA that are important to life on Earth. And, it is with the use of several single-dish submillimeter radio observing facilities, including the Arizona Radio Observatory (ARO) 12m, Yebes Observatory 40m, IRAM 30m, and Green Bank Observatory 100m Telescope (GBT), that we can systematically observe the faint rotational lines of COMs at prestellar core scales (~ a few thousand AU). In this talk I will present detection statistics and abundance constraints from several radio surveys targeting a large (> 60) sample of starless and prestellar cores across three molecular clouds – Taurus, Ophiuchus, and Perseus. Our results reveal COMs are prevalent earlier than previously thought and are likely inherited to the later stages of low-mass stars and planets.

---

Hôtes : Layal Chahine, Cecilia Ceccarelli

Salle Manuel Forestini, 414 rue de la piscine, 38400 Saint Martin d'Hères