arXiv subjects

Emeric Bron

Publications and source records attributed to Emeric Bron.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2018

Photoevaporating PDR models with the Hydra PDR Code

Recent Herschel and ALMA observations of Photodissociation Regions (PDRs) have revealed the presence of a high thermal pressure (P ~ 10^7-10^8 K cm-3) thin compressed layer at the PDR surface where warm molecular tracer emission (e.g. CH+, SH+, high-J CO, H2,...) originate. These high pressures (unbalanced by the surrounding environment) and a correlation between pressure and incident FUV field (G0) seem to indicate a dynamical origin with the radiation field playing an important role in driving the dynamics. We investigate whether photoevaporation of the illuminated edge of a molecular cloud could explain these high pressures and pressure-UV field correlation. We developed a 1D hydrodynamical PDR code coupling hydrodynamics, EUV and FUV radiative transfer and time-dependent thermo-chemical evolution. We applied it to a 1D plane-parallel photoevaporation scenario where a UV-illuminated molecular cloud can freely evaporate in a surrounding low-pressure medium. We find that photoevaporation can produce high thermal pressures and the observed P-G0 correlation, almost independently from the initial gas density. In addition, we find that constant-pressure PDR models are a better approximation to the structure of photoevaporating PDRs than constant-density PDR models, although moderate pressure gradients are present. Strong density gradients from the molecular to the neutral atomic region are found, which naturally explain the large density contrasts (1-2 orders of magnitude) derived from observations of different tracers. The photoevaporating PDR is preceded by a low velocity shock (a few km/s) propagating into the molecular cloud. Photoevaporating PDR models offer a promising explanation to the recent observational evidence of dynamical effects in PDRs.

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arXiv2017

H$_2$ formation on interstellar dust grains: the viewpoints of theory, experiments, models and observations

Molecular hydrogen is the most abundant molecule in the universe. It is the first one to form and survive photo-dissociation in tenuous environments. Its formation involves catalytic reactions on the surface of interstellar grains. The micro-physics of the formation process has been investigated intensively in the last 20 years, in parallel of new astrophysical observational and modeling progresses. In the perspectives of the probable revolution brought by the future satellite JWST, this article has been written to present what we think we know about the H$_2$ formation in a variety of interstellar environments.

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arXiv2017

Clustering the Orion B giant molecular cloud based on its molecular emission

Previous attempts at segmenting molecular line maps of molecular clouds have focused on using position-position-velocity data cubes of a single line to separate the spatial components of the cloud. In contrast, wide field spectral imaging with large spectral bandwidth in the (sub)mm domain now allows to combine multiple molecular tracers to understand the different physical and chemical phases that constitute giant molecular clouds. We aim at using multiple tracers (sensitive to different physical processes) to segment a molecular cloud into physically/chemically similar regions (rather than spatially connected components). We use a machine learning clustering method (the Meanshift algorithm) to cluster pixels with similar molecular emission, ignoring spatial information. Simple radiative transfer models are used to interpret the astrophysical information uncovered by the clustering. A clustering analysis based only on the J=1-0 lines of 12CO, 13CO and C18O reveals distinct density/column density regimes (nH~100, 500, and >1000 cm-3), closely related to the usual definitions of diffuse, translucent and high-column-density regions. Adding two UV-sensitive tracers, the (1-0) lines of HCO+ and CN, allows us to distinguish two clearly distinct chemical regimes, characteristic of UV-illuminated and UV-shielded gas. The UV-illuminated regime shows overbright HCO+ and CN emission, which we relate to photochemical enrichment. We also find a tail of high CN/HCO+ intensity ratio in UV-illuminated regions. Finer distinctions in density classes (nH~7E3, and 4E4 cm-3) for the densest regions are also identified, likely related to the higher critical density of the CN and HCO+ (1-0) lines. The association of simultaneous multi-line, wide-field mapping and powerful machine learning methods such as the Meanshift algorithm reveals how to decode the complex information available in molecular tracers.

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arXiv2017

The ESO Diffuse Interstellar Bands Large Exploration Survey: EDIBLES I. Project description, survey sample and quality assessment

The carriers of the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are largely unidentified molecules ubiquitously present in the interstellar medium (ISM). After decades of study, two strong and possibly three weak near-infrared DIBs have recently been attributed to the C60+ fullerene based on observational and laboratory measurements. There is great promise for the identification of the over 400 other known DIBs, as this result could provide chemical hints towards other possible carriers. In an effort to systematically study the properties of the DIB carriers, we have initiated a new large-scale observational survey: the ESO Diffuse Interstellar Bands Large Exploration Survey (EDIBLES). The main objective is to build on and extend existing DIB surveys to make a major step forward in characterising the physical and chemical conditions for a statistically significant sample of interstellar lines-of-sight, with the goal to reverse-engineer key molecular properties of the DIB carriers. EDIBLES is a filler Large Programme using the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope at Paranal, Chile. It is designed to provide an observationally unbiased view of the presence and behaviour of the DIBs towards early-spectral-type stars whose lines-of-sight probe the diffuse-to-translucent ISM. Such a complete dataset will provide a deep census of the atomic and molecular content, physical conditions, chemical abundances and elemental depletion levels for each sightline. Achieving these goals requires a homogeneous set of high-quality data in terms of resolution (R ~ 70000 -- 100000), sensitivity (S/N up to 1000 per resolution element), and spectral coverage (305--1042 nm), as well as a large sample size (100+ sightlines). In this first paper the goals, objectives and methodology of the EDIBLES programme are described and an initial assessment of the data is provided.

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arXiv2017

Dissecting the molecular structure of the Orion B cloud: Insight from Principal Component Analysis

Context. The combination of wideband receivers and spectrometers currently available in (sub-)millimeter observatories deliver wide- field hyperspectral imaging of the interstellar medium. Tens of spectral lines can be observed over degree wide fields in about fifty hours. This wealth of data calls for restating the physical questions about the interstellar medium in statistical terms. Aims. We aim at gaining information on the physical structure of the interstellar medium from a statistical analysis of many lines from different species over a large field of view, without requiring detailed radiative transfer or astrochemical modeling. Methods. We coupled a nonlinear rescaling of the data with one of the simplest multivariate analysis methods, namely the Principal Component Analysis, to decompose the observed signal into components that we interpret first qualitatively and then quantitatively based on our deep knowledge of the observed region and of the astrochemistry at play. Results. We identify 3 principal components, linear compositions of line brightness temperatures, that are correlated at various levels with the column density, the volume density and the UV radiation field. Conclusions. When sampling a sufficiently diverse mixture of physical parameters, it is possible to decompose the molecular emission in order to gain physical insight on the observed interstellar medium. This opens a new avenue for future studies of the interstellar medium.

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arXiv2017

Turbulence and star formation efficiency in molecular clouds: solenoidal versus compressive motions in Orion B

The nature of turbulence in molecular clouds is one of the key parameters that control star formation efficiency: compressive motions, as opposed to solenoidal motions, can trigger the collapse of cores, or mark the expansion of Hii regions. We try to observationally derive the fractions of momentum density ($ρv$) contained in the solenoidal and compressive modes of turbulence in the Orion B molecular cloud and relate these fractions to the star formation efficiency in the cloud. The implementation of a statistical method developed by Brunt & Federrath (2014), applied to a $^{13}$CO(J=1-0) datacube obtained with the IRAM-30m telescope, allows us to retrieve 3-dimensional quantities from the projected quantities provided by the observations, yielding an estimate of the compressive versus solenoidal ratio in various regions of the cloud. Despite the Orion B molecular cloud being highly supersonic (mean Mach number $\sim$ 6), the fractions of motion in each mode diverge significantly from equipartition. The cloud's motions are on average mostly solenoidal (excess > 8 % with respect to equipartition), which is consistent with its low star formation rate. On the other hand, the motions around the main star-forming regions (NGC 2023 and NGC 2024) prove to be strongly compressive. We have successfully applied to observational data a method that was so far only tested on simulations, and have shown that there can be a strong intra-cloud variability of the compressive and solenoidal fractions, these fractions being in turn related to the star formation efficiency. This opens a new possibility for star-formation diagnostics in galactic molecular clouds.

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arXiv2016

The anatomy of the Orion B Giant Molecular Cloud: A local template for studies of nearby galaxies

We aim to develop the Orion B Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) as a local template for interpreting extra-galactic molecular line observations. We use the wide-band receiver at the IRAM-30m to spatially and spectrally resolve the Orion B GMC. The observations cover almost 1 square degree at 26" resolution with a bandwidth of 32 GHz from 84 to 116 GHz in only two tunings. Among the mapped spectral lines are the 12CO, 13CO, C18O, C17O, HCN, HNC, 12CN, CCH, HCO+, N2H+ (1-0), and 12CS, 32SO, SiO, c-C3H2, CH3OH (2-1) transitions. We introduce the molecular anatomy of the Orion B GMC, including relations between line intensities and gas column density or far-UV radiation fields, and correlations between selected line and line ratios. We also obtain a dust-traced gas mass that is less than about one third the CO-traced mass, using the standard Xco conversion factor. The presence of overluminous CO can be traced back to the dependence of the CO intensity on UV illumination. In fact, while most lines show some dependence on the UV radiation field, CN and CCH are the most sensitive. Moreover dense cloud cores are almost exclusively traced by N2H+. Other traditional high density tracers, such as HCN (1-0), are also easily detected in extended translucent regions at a typical density of about 500 H2 cm-3. In general, we find no straightforward relation between line critical density and the fraction of the line luminosity coming from dense gas regions. Our initial findings demonstrate that the relations between line (ratio) intensities and environment in GMCs are more complicated than often assumed. Sensitivity (i.e., the molecular column density), excitation, and above all chemistry contribute to the observed line intensity distributions. They must be considered together when developing the next generation of extra-galactic molecular line diagnostics of mass, density, temperature and radiation field.

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arXiv2016

Radiative and mechanical feedback into the molecular gas in the Large Magellanic Cloud. I. N159W

We present Herschel SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) observations of N159W, an active star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). In our observations, a number of far-infrared cooling lines including CO(4-3) to CO(12-11), [CI] 609 and 370 micron, and [NII] 205 micron are clearly detected. With an aim of investigating the physical conditions and excitation processes of molecular gas, we first construct CO spectral line energy distributions (SLEDs) on 10 pc scales by combining the FTS CO transitions with ground-based low-J CO data and analyze the observed CO SLEDs using non-LTE radiative transfer models. We find that the CO-traced molecular gas in N159W is warm (kinetic temperature of 153-754 K) and moderately dense (H2 number density of (1.1-4.5)e3 cm-3). To assess the impact of the energetic processes in the interstellar medium on the physical conditions of the CO-emitting gas, we then compare the observed CO line intensities with the models of photodissociation regions (PDRs) and shocks. We first constrain the properties of PDRs by modelling Herschel observations of [OI] 145, [CII] 158, and [CI] 370 micron fine-structure lines and find that the constrained PDR components emit very weak CO emission. X-rays and cosmic-rays are also found to provide a negligible contribution to the CO emission, essentially ruling out ionizing sources (ultraviolet photons, X-rays, and cosmic-rays) as the dominant heating source for CO in N159W. On the other hand, mechanical heating by low-velocity C-type shocks with ~10 km/s appears sufficient enough to reproduce the observed warm CO.

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arXiv2016

Efficient ortho-para conversion of H2 on interstellar grain surfaces

Context: Fast surface conversion between ortho- and para-H2 has been observed in laboratory studies, and this mechanism has been proposed to play a role in the control of the ortho-para ratio in the interstellar medium. Observations of rotational lines of H2 in Photo-Dissociation Regions (PDRs) have indeed found significantly lower ortho-para ratios than expected at equilibrium. The mechanisms controlling the balance of the ortho-para ratio in the interstellar medium thus remain incompletely understood, while this ratio can affect the thermodynamical properties of the gas (equation of state, cooling function). Aims: We aim to build an accurate model of ortho-para conversion on dust surfaces based on the most recent experimental and theoretical results, and to validate it by comparison to observations of H2 rotational lines in PDRs. Methods: We propose a statistical model of ortho-para conversion on dust grains with fluctuating dust temperatures, based on a master equation approach. This computation is then coupled to full PDR models and compared to PDR observations. Results: We show that the observations of rotational H2 lines indicate a high conversion efficiency on dust grains, and that this high efficiency can be accounted for if taking dust temperature fluctuations into account with our statistical model of surface conversion. Simpler models neglecting the dust temperature fluctuations do not reach the high efficiency deduced from the observations. Moreover, this high efficiency induced by dust temperature fluctuations is quite insensitive to the values of microphysical parameters of the model. Conclusions: Ortho-para conversion on grains is thus an efficient mechanism in most astrophysical conditions that can play a significant role in controlling the ortho-para ratio.

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arXiv2015

Physical conditions in the central molecular zone inferred by H3+

The H3+ molecule has been detected in many lines of sight within the central molecular zone (CMZ) with exceptionally large column densities and unusual excitation properties compared to diffuse local clouds. The detection of the (3,3) metastable level has been suggested to be the signature of warm and diffuse gas in the CMZ. We use the Meudon PDR code to re-examine the relationship between the column density of H3+ and the cosmic-ray ionization rate, $ζ$, up to large values of $ζ$. We study the impact of the various mechanisms that can excite H3+ in its metastable state. We produce grids of PDR models exploring different parameters ($ζ$, size of clouds, metallicity) and infer the physical conditions that best match the observations toward ten lines of sight in the CMZ. For one of them, Herschel observations of HF, OH+, H2O+, and H3O+ can be used as additional constraints. We check that the results found for H3+ also account for the observations of these molecules. We find that the linear relationship between N(H3+) and $ζ$ only holds up to a certain value of the cosmic-ray ionization rate, which depends on the proton density. A value $ζ\sim 1 - 11 \times 10^{-14}$ s$^{-1}$ explains both the large observed H3+ column density and its excitation in the metastable level (3,3) in the CMZ. It also reproduces N(OH+), N(H2O+) and N(H3O+) detected toward Sgr B2(N). We confirm that the CMZ probed by H3+ is diffuse, nH $\lesssim$ 100 cm-3 and warm, T $\sim$ 212-505 K. This warm medium is due to cosmic-ray heating. We also find that the diffuse component probed by H3+ must fill a large fraction of the CMZ. Finally, we suggest the warm gas in the CMZ enables efficient H2 formation via chemisorption sites as in PDRs. This contributes to enhance the abundance of H3+ in this high cosmic-ray flux environment.

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arXiv2014

Surface chemistry in the Interstellar Medium II. $\mathrm{H}_2$ formation on dust with random temperature fluctuations

The $\mathrm{H}_2$ formation on grains is known to be sensitive to dust temperature, which is also known to fluctuate for small grain sizes due to photon absorption. We aim at exploring the consequences of simultaneous fluctuations of the dust temperature and the adsorbed H-atom population on the $\mathrm{H}_2$ formation rate under the full range of astrophysically relevant UV intensities and gas conditions. The master equation approach is generalized to coupled fluctuations in both the grain's temperature and its surface population and solved numerically. The resolution can be simplified in the case of the Eley-Rideal mechanism, allowing a fast computation. For the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism, it remains computationally expensive, and accurate approximations are constructed. We find the Langmuir-Hinshelwood mechanism to become an efficient formation mechanism in unshielded photon dominated region (PDR) edge conditions when taking those fluctuations into account, despite hot average dust temperatures. It reaches an importance comparable to the Eley-Rideal mechanism. However, we show that a simpler rate equation treatment gives qualitatively correct observable results in full cloud simulations under most astrophysically relevant conditions. Typical differences are a factor of 2-3 on the intensities of the $\mathrm{H}_2$ $v=0$ lines. We also find that rare fluctuations in cloud cores are sufficient to significantly reduce the formation efficiency. Our detailed analysis confirms that the usual approximations used in numerical models are adequate when interpreting observations, but a more sophisticated statistical analysis is required if one is interested in the details of surface processes.

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