O$_2$ Emission Toward Orion H$_2$ Peak 1 and the Role of FUV-Illuminated C-Shocks

TL;DR

This study reinterprets the detection of molecular oxygen in Orion H2 Peak 1 by incorporating FUV effects into shock models, revealing new insights into shock conditions and chemistry that explain observed O2 emissions.

Contribution

It introduces new C-type shock models that include FUV radiation effects, providing a better fit to observed O2 line intensities and ratios in Orion H2 Peak 1.

Findings

FUV radiation significantly influences shock chemistry and structure.

A shock model with 23 km/s velocity and G_0=1 matches observations.

O2 emission likely originates behind shocks associated with maser activity.

Abstract

Molecular oxygen, O_2, has been the target of ground-based and space-borne searches for decades. Of the thousands of lines of sight surveyed, only those toward Rho Oph and Orion H_2 Peak 1 have yielded detections of any statistical significance. The detection of the O_2 N_J =3_3 -1_2 and 5_4 - 3_4 lines at 487.249 GHz and 773.840 GHz, respectively, toward Rho Ophiuchus has been attributed to a short-lived peak in the time-dependent, cold-cloud O_2 abundance, while the detection of the O_2 N_J =3_3 - 1_2, 5_4 - 3_4 lines, plus the 7_6 - 5_6 line at 1120.715 GHz, toward Orion has been ascribed to time-dependent preshock physical and chemical evolution and low-velocity (12 km/s) non-dissociative C-type shocks, both of which are fully shielded from far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation, plus a postshock region that is exposed to a FUV field. We report a re-interpretation of the Orion O_2 detection based on new C-type shock models that fully incorporate the significant effects the presence of even a weak FUV field can have on the preshock gas, shock structure and postshock chemistry. In particular, we show that a family of solutions exists, depending on the FUV intensity, that reproduces both the observed O_2 intensities and O_2 line ratios. The solution in closest agreement with the shock parameters inferred for H_2 Peak 1 from other gas tracers assumes a 23 km/s shock impacting gas with a preshock density of 8x10^4 cm^-3 and G_0 =1, substantially different from that inferred for the fully-shielded shock case. As pointed out previously, the similarity between the LSR velocity of all three O_2 lines (~11 km/s) and recently measured H_2O 5_32 - 4_41 maser emission at 620.701 GHz toward H_2 Peak 1 suggests that the O_2 emission arises behind the same shocks responsible for the maser emission, though the O_2 emission is almost certainly more extended than the localized high density maser spots