Molecular hydrogen formation on dust: The impact of gas-dust drift on formation efficiency

Abstract

Molecular hydrogen is predominantly formed on dust-grain surfaces in the interstellar medium, where relative gas-dust motion can arise in dynamically active environments. While the dependence of H$_2$ formation on grain temperature and surface properties is well studied, the impact of gas-dust drift has received little attention. We investigate how gas-dust drift modifies H$_2$ formation, focusing on the competition between the drift-enhanced H-atom collision rate and reduced sticking at higher impact energies. We use an event-driven kinetic Monte Carlo model that follows individual H atoms on spherical silicate and carbonaceous grains, including adsorption, surface migration, thermal desorption, and Langmuir-Hinshelwood (LH) and Eley-Rideal (ER) reactions. Drift is described by a shifted Maxwellian velocity distribution, and we compare constant and impact-energy-dependent sticking probabilities. Drift produces increasingly anisotropic distributions of adsorbed H and H$_2$ formation across the grain surface. Assuming constant sticking, increasing drift enhances H$_2$ formation through the higher collision rate, with efficiencies up to $ε=0.3-0.4$. With energy-dependent sticking, strong drift instead suppresses formation on both materials, reducing efficiencies to $ε=0.01-0.03$. Carbonaceous grains remain efficient to higher dust temperatures than silicate grains. ER reactions dominate over most of the investigated parameter space and become increasingly important at strong drift as the reduced surface population suppresses LH reactions. Thus, enhanced collision rates under gas-dust drift do not necessarily increase H$_2$ formation. Models of dynamically active environments should account for both relative gas-dust velocities and their effects on sticking.