Modelling the chemical evolution of star forming filaments

TL;DR

This paper presents advanced 3D-MHD simulations of star forming filaments using the largest chemical network to date, demonstrating the feasibility and consistency with observations.

Contribution

It introduces the first use of a 37-species chemical network in 3D-MHD filament simulations with the KROME package, showcasing complex chemistry modeling.

Findings

Chemical and physical results align with observations.

Feasibility of complex chemical networks in large-scale simulations.

Variation of radiation and cosmic rays affects chemical evolution.

Abstract

We present simulations of star forming filaments incorporating - to our knowledge - the largest chemical network used to date on-the-fly in a 3D-MHD simulation. The network contains 37 chemical species and about 300 selected reaction rates. For this we use the newly developed package KROME (Grassi et al. 2014). Our results demonstrate the feasibility of using such a complex chemical network in 3D-MHD simulations on modern supercomputers. We perform simulations with different strengths of the interstellar radiation field and the cosmic ray ionisation rate and find chemical and physical results in accordance with observations and other recent numerical work.