Astrochemistry: From primordial gas to present-day clouds

TL;DR

This paper reviews astrochemistry's role in star formation across cosmic history, focusing on primordial conditions and present-day processes, highlighting its importance in cooling and diagnostics.

Contribution

It provides a comparative analysis of astrochemistry in primordial and current star-forming environments, emphasizing recent observational and modeling insights.

Findings

Chemistry influences cooling in high-redshift universe models.

Deuteration processes are significant in present-day star-forming cores.

Observations of the Caffau star inform primordial chemistry understanding.

Abstract

Astrochemistry plays a central role during the process of star formation, both in the primordial regime as well as in the present-day Universe. We revisit here the chemistry in both regimes, focusing first on the chemistry under close to primordial conditions, as observed in the so-called Caffau star SDSS J102915+172927, and subsequently discuss deuteration processes in present-day star-forming cores. In models of the high-redshift Universe, the chemistry is particularly relevant to determine the cooling, while it also serves as an important diagnostic in the case of present-day star formation.