A Search for Co-evolving Ion and Neutral Gas Species in Prestellar Molecular Cloud Cores
Abstract
A comparison between the widths of ion and neutral molecule spectral lines has been recently used to estimate the strength of the magnetic field in turbulent star-forming regions. However, the ion (HCO+) and neutral (HCN) species used in such studies may not be necessarily co-evolving at every scale and density, and thus, may not trace the same regions. Here, we use coupled chemical/dynamical models of evolving prestellar molecular cloud cores including non-equilibrium chemistry, with and without magnetic fields, to study the spatial distribution of HCO+ and HCN, which have been used in observations of spectral line width differences to date. In addition, we seek new ion-neutral pairs that are good candidates for such observations, because they have similar evolution and are approximately co-spatial in our models. We identify three such good candidate pairs: HCO+/NO, HCO+/CO, and NO+/NO.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- November 2012
- DOI:
- 10.1088/0004-637X/760/1/57
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1209.5746
- Bibcode:
- 2012ApJ...760...57T
- Keywords:
-
- ISM: abundances;
- ISM: clouds;
- ISM: magnetic fields;
- ISM: molecules;
- magnetohydrodynamics: MHD;
- stars: formation;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
- E-Print:
- 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ