Bistability in Interstellar Gas-Phase Chemistry

Preprint

16 January 2006

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.astro-ph/0601323

Abstract

We present an analysis of "bistability" in gas-phase chemical models of dark interstellar clouds. We identify the chemical mechanisms that allow high- and low-ionization solutions to the chemical rate-equations to coexist. We derive simple analytic scaling relations for the gas densities and ionization rates for which the chemistry becomes bistable. We explain why bistability is sensitive to the H3+ dissociative recombination rate coefficient, and why it is damped by gas-grain neutralization.

Keywords

INTERSTELLAR GAS
PHASE CHEMISTRY
RECOMBINATION
DISSOCIATIVE
BISTABILITY
IONIZATION
GAS PHASE
COEXIST

All Related Versions

Version 1, 2006-01-16, ArXiv
Published version: The Astrophysical Journal, 645 (1), 314.

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