A study of methyl formate in astrochemical environments

TL;DR

This study explores a solid-phase formation pathway for methyl formate in astrochemical environments, using experimental data and chemical modeling, highlighting its potential in dark clouds but limitations in hot cores.

Contribution

It introduces a chemical model incorporating recent experimental results to evaluate solid-phase formation of methyl formate in space environments.

Findings

Model reproduces methyl formate in dark clouds.

Model fails to account for methyl formate in hot cores.

Solid-phase formation may be significant in dark clouds.

Abstract

Several complex organic molecules are routinely detected in high abundances towards hot cores and hot corinos. For many of them, their paths of formation in space are uncertain, as gas phase reactions alone seem to be insufficient. In this paper, we investigate a possible solid-phase route of formation for methyl formate (HCOOCH3). We use a chemical model updated with recent results from an experiment where simulated grain surfaces were irradiated with 200 keV protons at 16 K, to simulate the effects of cosmic ray irradiation on grain surfaces. We find that this model may be sufficient to reproduce the observed methyl formate in dark clouds, but not that found in hot cores and corinos.