H2CO and CH3OH maps of the Orion Bar photodissociation region

TL;DR

This study maps methanol and formaldehyde in the Orion Bar to understand their spatial distribution and physical conditions, revealing methanol's confinement to dense clumps and formaldehyde's presence in the interclump medium.

Contribution

First multi-line mapping of H2CO and CH3OH in the Orion Bar, confirming their different spatial distributions and physical associations within the region.

Findings

Methanol peaks in dense clumps, weak in interclump medium.

Formaldehyde is detected both in clumps and interclump gas.

Methanol abundance decreases significantly from clumps to interclump medium.

Abstract

A previous analysis of methanol and formaldehyde towards the Orion Bar concluded that the two molecular species may trace different physical components, methanol the clumpy material, and formaldehyde the interclump medium. To verify this hypothesis, we performed multi-line mapping observations of the two molecules to study their spatial distributions. The observations were performed with the IRAM-30m telescope at 218 and 241 GHz, with an angular resolution of ~11''. Additional data for H2CO from the Plateau de Bure array are also discussed. The data were analysed using an LVG approach. Both molecules are detected in our single-dish data. Our data show that CH3OH peaks towards the clumps of the Bar, but its intensity decreases below the detection threshold in the interclump material. When averaging over a large region of the interclump medium, the strongest CH3OH line is detected with a peak intensity of ~0.06K. Formaldehyde also peaks on the clumps, but it is also detected in the interclump gas. We verified that the weak intensity of CH3OH in the interclump medium is not caused by the different excitation conditions of the interclump material, but reflects a decrease in the column density of methanol. The abundance of CH3OH relative to H2CO decreases by at least one order of magnitude from the dense clumps to the interclump medium.