Chemistry in Evaporating Ices: Unexplored Territory

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for three-body chemical reactions to occur during the evaporation of interstellar ices, possibly leading to complex molecule formation in hot core environments.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified computational model to investigate three-body chemistry in evaporating ices, highlighting conditions for significant chemical conversion.

Findings

Chemical conversion depends on density and rate coefficients.

A wide parameter range allows for significant complex molecule formation.

Implications for astrochemistry of hot cores are discussed.

Abstract

We suggest that three-body chemistry may occur in warm high density gas evaporating in transient co\textendash desorption events on interstellar ices. Using a highly idealised computational model we explore the chemical conversion from simple species of the ice to more complex species containing several heavy atoms, as a function of density and of adopted three body rate coefficients. We predict that there is a wide range of densities and rate coefficients in which a significant chemical conversion may occur. We discuss the implications of this idea for the astrochemistry of hot cores.