How Interstellar Chemistry (and Astrochemistry More Generally) Became Useful

TL;DR

This paper discusses the development of astrochemistry from a theoretical and practical perspective, highlighting its diagnostic utility in understanding astronomical environments and the contributions of molecular processes to astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

It provides a historical overview and examples of how interstellar chemistry has become a useful tool for diagnosing and understanding astrophysical processes.

Findings

Molecules diagnose large-scale dynamics in star-forming regions and supernovae.

Molecular processes influence the evolution of dense cores and evolved stars.

Laboratory and theoretical studies elucidate molecule formation and removal mechanisms.

Abstract

In 1986 Alex Dalgarno published a paper entitled "Is Interstellar Chemistry Useful?" By the middle 1970s, and perhaps even earlier, Alex had hoped that astronomical molecules would prove to: possess significant diagnostic utility; control many of the environments in which they exist; stimulate a wide variety of physicists and chemists who are at least as fascinated by the mechanisms forming and removing the molecules as by astronomy. His own research efforts have contributed greatly to the realization of that hope. This paper contains a few examples of: how molecules are used to diagnose large-scale dynamics in astronomical sources including star forming regions and supernovae; the ways in which molecular processes control the evolution of astronomical objects such as dense cores destined to become stars and very evolved giant stars; theoretical and laboratory investigations that elucidate the processes producing and removing astronomical molecules and allow their detection.