Deuterium chemistry in the primordial gas

We review and update some aspects of deuterium chemistry in the post-recombination Universe with particular emphasis on the formation and destruction of HD. We examine in detail the available theoretical and experimental data for the leading reactions of deuterium chemistry and we highlight the areas where improvements in the determination of rate coefficients are necessary to reduce the remaining uncertainties. We discuss the cooling properties of HD and the modifications to the standard cooling function introduced by the presence of the cosmological radiation field. Finally, we consider the effects of deuterium chemistry on the dynamical collapse of primordial clouds in a simple top-hat scenario, and we speculate on the minimum mass a cloud must have in order to be able to cool in a Hubble time. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.