Chemical study of intermediate-mass (IM) Class 0 protostars

CO depletion and N₂H⁺ deuteration

¹ Observatorio Astronómico Nacional (OAN, IGN), Apdo 112, 28803 Alcalá de Henares, Spain e-mail: t.alonso@oan.es
² Laboratoire d'Astrophysique, Observatoire de Grenoble, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France

³ School of Physics & Astronomy, E.C. Stoner Building, The University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
⁴ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, V8P 1A1, Canada
⁵ National Research Council of Canada, Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics, 5071 West Saanich Road, Victoria, BC, V9E 2E7, Canada
⁶ Joint ALMA Observatory, El Golf 40, Las Condes, Santiago, Chile
⁷ Centro de Astrobiología (CSIC/INTA), Laboratory of Molecular Astrophysics, Ctra. Ajalvir km. 4, 28850, Torrejón de Ardoz, Spain
⁸ Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
⁹ Anton Pannekoek Astronomical Institute, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94249, 1090 GE Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Received: 24 February 2010
Accepted: 16 April 2010

Abstract

Aims. We are carrying out a physical and chemical study of the protostellar envelopes in a representative sample of IM Class 0 protostars. In our first paper we determined the physical structure (density-temperature radial profiles) of the protostellar envelopes. Here, we study the CO depletion and N₂H⁺ deuteration.

Methods. We observed the millimeter lines of C¹⁸O, C¹⁷O, N₂H⁺ and N₂D⁺ towards the protostars using the IRAM 30m telescope. Based on these observations, we derived the C¹⁸O, N₂H⁺ and N₂D⁺ radial abundance profiles across their envelopes using a radiative transfer code. In addition, we modeled the chemistry of the protostellar envelopes.

Results. All the C¹⁸O 10 maps are well fit when assuming that the C¹⁸O abundance decreases inwards within the protostellar envelope until the gas and dust reach the CO evaporation temperature, ≈20-25 K, where the CO is released back to the gas phase. The N₂H⁺ deuterium fractionation in Class 0 IMs is [ N₂D⁺] /[ N₂H⁺] = 0.005–0.014, two orders of magnitude higher than the elemental [D/H] value in the interstellar medium, but a factor of 10 lower than in prestellar clumps. Chemical models account for the C¹⁸O and N₂H⁺ observations if we assume the CO abundance is a factor of ~2 lower than the canonical value in the inner envelope. This could be the consequence of the CO being converted into CH₃OH on the grain surfaces prior to the evaporation and/or the photodissociation of CO by the stellar UV radiation. The deuterium fractionation is not fitted by chemical models. This discrepancy is very likely caused by the simplicity of our model that assumes spherical geometry and neglects important phenomena like the effect of bipolar outflows and UV radiation from the star. More important, the deuterium fractionation is dependent on the ortho-to-para H₂ ratio, which is not likely to reach the steady-state value in the dynamical time scales of these protostars.