Protostars and Planets VI, Heidelberg, July 15-20, 2013

Poster 1B025

Modeling the Chemical Distribution of Turbulent Star-Forming Clouds

Offner, Stella (Yale University)
Bisbas, Thomas (University College London)
Viti, Serena (University College London)
Bell, Tom (Centro de Astrobiologia (CSIC-INTA))

Abstract:
We use 3D-PDR, a three-dimensional astrochemistry code for modeling photodissociation regions (PDRs), to post-process hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent, star-forming clouds. We focus on the transition from atomic to molecular gas, with specific attention to the formation and distribution of H, C+, C, H2 and CO. We investigate the effect of geometry and simulation parameters on chemical abundances. For a uniform external radiation field, we find similar distributions to those derived using a one-dimensional PDR code. However, we demonstrate that a three-dimensional treatment is necessary for a spatially varying external field. Finally, we use RADMC-3D to compute CO emission and explore the effect of spatially varying temperature and abundance on XCO, the CO to H2 conversion factor.

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