Journal
ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS
Volume 529, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
EDP SCIENCES S A
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201116631
Keywords
stars: formation; ISM: clouds; ISM: molecules; radio lines: ISM
Categories
Funding
- INSU/CNRS (France)
- MPG (Germany)
- IGN (Spain)
- European Community [FP7/2007-2013, 229517]
- Spanish MICINN [AYA2008-06189-C03]
- FEDER
- European Social Fund
- Italian Space Agency (ASI) [ASI-I/005/07/1]
- Swiss National Science Foundation [PP002-110504, P00P2-130188]
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/F002092/1, ST/I001557/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/I001557/1, ST/F002092/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Context. Theory predicts, and observations confirm, that the column density ratio of a molecule containing D to its counterpart containing H can be used as an evolutionary tracer in the low-mass star formation process. Aims. Since it remains unclear if the high-mass star formation process is a scaled-up version of the low-mass one, we investigated whether the relation between deuteration and evolution can be applied to the high-mass regime. Methods. With the IRAM-30 m telescope, we observed rotational transitions of N2D+ and N2H+ and derived the deuterated fraction in 27 cores within massive star-forming regions understood to represent different evolutionary stages of the massive-star formation process. Results. The abundance of N2D+ is higher at the pre-stellar/cluster stage, then drops during the formation of the protostellar object(s) as in the low-mass regime, remaining relatively constant during the ultra-compact HII region phase. The objects with the highest fractional abundance of N2D+ are starless cores with properties very similar to typical pre-stellar cores of lower mass. The abundance of N2D+ is lower in objects with higher gas temperatures as in the low-mass case but does not seem to depend on gas turbulence. Conclusions. Our results indicate that the N2D+-to-N2H+ column density ratio can be used as an evolutionary indicator in both low-and high-mass star formation, and that the physical conditions influencing the abundance of deuterated species likely evolve similarly during the processes that lead to the formation of both low-and high-mass stars.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available