Astrochemistry: from molecular clouds to protoplanetary disks
Cécile Favre
Istituto Nazionale di AstroFisica (INAF), Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze, Italie
Vendredi 7 Décembre 2018, 14h00
bibliothèque LCT, tour 12 - 13, 4ème étage
One of the most important questions in the astrophysics of the interstellar medium (ISM) is whether, how, when, and where complex organic molecules (i.e. molecules that contain 6 or more atoms), including prebiotic species, are formed. In the Interstellar-Earth connection context, could this have a bearing on the origin of life on Earth? Formation mechanisms of complex organic species, which include potentially prebiotic molecules, differ from those at play on Earth and are still much debated and may include grain-mantle chemistry and/or gas-phase chemistry.
Understanding the mechanisms that lead to the interstellar molecular complexification, along with the involved physico-chemical processes, is mandatory to answer the above questions. The analysis of the emission of the interstellar molecules gives strong insight into the understanding of the physical conditions (temperature, density) and chemistry that are occurring in such environments.
I will present some notable results - based on (sub)millimetric observations (e.g. Herschel, ALMA, NOEMA) - on the detection of (complex) organic molecules towards low- and high-mass star forming regions along with protoplanetary disks. I also will discuss their physico-chemical implications.