Chemical modeling of the complex organic molecules in the extended region around Sagittarius B2

¹ Purple Mountain Observatory and Key Laboratory of Radio Astronomy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 10 Yuanhua Road, 210023 Nanjing, PR China
e-mail: wangyao@pmo.ac.cn; hcwang@pmo.ac.cn
² School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China, 96 Jinzhai Road, 230026 Hefei, PR China
³ Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
⁴ Department of Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilian University, Butenandtstr. 5-13, 81377 Munich, Germany
⁵ Department of Radio Science and Technology, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 80 Nandan Road, 200030 Shanghai, PR China

Received: 24 January 2021
Accepted: 8 March 2021

Abstract

Context. The chemical differentiation of seven complex organic molecules (COMs) in the extended region around Sagittarius B2 (Sgr B2) has been previously observed: CH₂OHCHO, CH₃OCHO, t-HCOOH, C₂H₅OH, and CH₃NH₂ were detected both in the extended region and near the hot cores Sgr B2(N) and Sgr B2(M), while CH₃OCH₃ and C₂H₅CN were only detected near the hot cores. The density and temperature in the extended region are relatively low in comparison with Sgr B2(N) and Sgr B2(M). Different desorption mechanisms, including photodesorption, reactive desorption, and shock heating, and a few other mechanisms have been proposed to explain the observed COMs in the cold regions. However, they fail to explain the deficiency of CH₃OCH₃ and C₂H₅CN in the extended region around Sgr B2.

Aims. Based on known physical properties of the extended region around Sgr B2, we explored under what physical conditions the chemical simulations can fit the observations and explain the different spatial distribution of these seven species in the extended region around Sgr B2.

Methods. We used the macroscopic Monte Carlo method to perform a detailed parameter space study. A static physical model and an evolving physical model including a cold phase and a warm-up phase were used, respectively. The fiducial models adopt the observed physical parameters except for the local cosmic ray ionization rate ζ_CR. In addition to photodesorption that is included in all models, we investigated how chain reaction mechanism, shocks, an X-ray burst, enhanced reactive desorption and low diffusion barriers could affect the results of chemical modeling.

Results. All gas-grain chemical models based on static physics cannot fit the observations, except for the high abundances of CH₃NH₂ and C₂H₅CN in some cases. The simulations based on evolving physical conditions can fit six COMs when T ~ 30−60 K in the warm-up phase, but the best-fit temperature is still higher than the observed dust temperature of 20 K. The best agreement between the simulations and all seven observed COMs at a lower temperature T ~ 27 K is achieved by considering a short-duration ≈10² yr X-ray burst with ζ_CR = 1.3 × 10⁻¹³ s⁻¹ at the early stage of the warm-up phase when it still has a temperature of 20 K. The reactive desorption is the key mechanism for producing these COMs and inducing the low abundances of CH₃OCH₃ and C₂H₅CN.

Conclusions. We conclude that the evolution of the extended region around Sgr B2 may have begun with a cold, T ≤ 10 K phase followed by a warm-up phase. When its temperature reached about T ~ 20 K, an X-ray flare from the Galactic black hole Sgr A* with a short duration of no more than 100 yr was acquired, affecting strongly the Sgr B2 chemistry. The observed COMs in Sgr B2 are able to retain their observed abundances only several hundred years after such a flare, which could imply that such short-term X-rays flares occur relatively often, likely associated with the accretion activity of the Sgr A* source.