| Issue |
A&A
Volume 692, December 2024
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | A120 | |
| Number of page(s) | 12 | |
| Section | Interstellar and circumstellar matter | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202450169 | |
| Published online | 06 December 2024 | |
Full interferometric map of the L1157 southern outflow: Formamide (NH2CHO) can form in the gas, after all★
1
Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG,
38000
Grenoble,
France
2
Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique,
300 rue de la Piscine, Domaine Universitaire,
38406
Saint-Martin d’Hères,
France
3
INAF, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri,
Largo E. Fermi 5,
50125
Firenze,
Italy
★★ Corresponding author; ana.lopez-sepulcre@univ-grenoble-alpes.fr
Received:
28
March
2024
Accepted:
18
October
2024
Context. The formation mechanism of interstellar formamide (NH2CHO), a key prebiotic precursor, is currently a matter of hot debate within the astrochemistry community, with both gas-phase and grain-surface chemical pathways having been proposed as its dominant formation route.
Aims. The aim of the present study is to place firm observational constraints on the formation pathways leading to formamide thanks to new interferometric observations of the molecular outflow driven by the protostellar binary L1157.
Methods. We employed the IRAM NOEMA interferometer to map the entire southern outflow of L1157, which contains three main shocked regions with increasing post-shock age: B0, B1, and B2. This allowed us to measure how the abundance of formamide, that of acetaldehyde (CH3CHO), and the ratio of the two, vary with time in this region. In order to gain a greater understanding of the most likely formation routes of formamide, we ran a grid of astrochemical models and compared these to our observations.
Results. A comparison between observations and astrochemical modelling indicates that there are two possible scenarios: one in which the amount of formamide observed can be explained by gas-phase-only chemistry, and more specifically via the reaction H2CO + NH2 → NH2CHO + H2 , and another in which part of the observed formamide originates from surface chemistry and part from gas-phase chemistry. Surface chemistry alone cannot account for the abundance of formamide that we measure.
Conclusions. While grain-surface chemistry cannot be ruled out, the present study brings definitive proof that gas-phase chemistry does work in L1157-B and acts efficiently in the production of this molecular species.
Key words: stars: formation / stars: protostars / stars: winds, outflows / ISM: jets and outflows / ISM: molecules / ISM: individual objects: L1157-B
© The Authors 2024
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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