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Chemical Processes in the Interstellar Medium

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Astrochemistry and Astrobiology

Part of the book series: Physical Chemistry in Action ((PCIA))

Abstract

Models of the chemical composition of the interstellar medium incorporate networks of chemical reactions. The rate coefficients and the products of these reactions are important components of the model. In this chapter I review the determinants of these components and the methods used to measure them experimentally and calculate them using theory. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to ion + neutral molecule and neutral molecule + neutral molecule reactions. I also briefly discuss radiative association, dissociative recombination and reactions occurring on surfaces. The conditions of low pressure and low temperature in the interstellar medium place considerable demands on experiment and theory, which are particularly severe for reactions between neutral species. Many reactions can be estimated with tolerable accuracy. Others require a combination of high level electronic structure calculations, coupled with detailed theory and low temperature experimental measurements.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    These definitions of ‘branching ratio’ and ‘channel efficiency’ are not universally agreed. For example, the KIDA data base uses ‘branching ration’ for the ratio of the rate coefficient for a particular channel to that for the overall reaction, so that the branching ratios sum to unity.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Dr. Stephen Klippenstein for helpful discussion of uncertainties in transition state energies in electronic structure calculations and Dr. Branko Ruscic for the provision of recent data for the Active Thermochemical Tables (ATcT).

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  1. School of Chemistry, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK

    Michael J. Pilling

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  1. , The University Chemical Laboratory, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1EW, United Kingdom

    Ian W. M. Smith

  2. , School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Edinburgh, The King's Buildings, James Clerk Maxwell Building, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, United Kingdom

    Charles S. Cockell

  3. , Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement, Observatoire de Paris-Meudon, en astrophysique (LERMA), places Jules Janssen 5, Meudon, 92195, France

    Sydney Leach

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Pilling, M.J. (2013). Chemical Processes in the Interstellar Medium. In: Smith, I., Cockell, C., Leach, S. (eds) Astrochemistry and Astrobiology. Physical Chemistry in Action. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31730-9_3

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