# The water line emission and ortho-to-para ratio in the Orion Bar photon-dominated region

## TL;DR

This study reanalyzed water emission lines in the Orion Bar PDR using advanced modeling, revealing that water molecules form with an ortho-to-para ratio consistent with local thermal equilibrium at the gas temperature, challenging previous low OPR findings.

## Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive reanalysis of water emission in the Orion Bar, demonstrating that gas-phase water forms with an OPR in thermal equilibrium, using detailed PDR modeling and additional observational data.

## Key findings

- Water gas-phase abundance is about 2×10⁻⁷.
- The ortho-to-para ratio is approximately 2.8, indicating thermal equilibrium.
- Water emission originates from regions with visual extinction around 9.

## Abstract

A very low ortho-to-para ratio (OPR) of 0.1-0.5 was previously reported in the Orion Bar photon-dominated region (PDR), based on observations of two optically thin $\mathrm{H_2^{18}O}$ lines which were analyzed by using a single-slab large velocity gradient model. The corresponding spin temperature does not coincide with the kinetic temperature of the molecular gas in this UV-illuminated region. This was interpreted as an indication of water molecules being formed on cold icy grains which were subsequently released by UV photodesorption. A more complete set of water observations in the Orion Bar, including seven $\mathrm{H_2^{16}O}$ lines and one $\mathrm{H_2^{18}O}$ line, carried out using Herschel/HIFI instrument, was reanalyzed using the Meudon PDR code to derive gas-phase water abundance and the OPR, taking into account the steep density and temperature gradients present in the region. The model line intensities are in good agreement with the observations assuming that water molecules formed with an OPR corresponding to thermal equilibrium conditions at the local kinetic temperature of the gas and when solely considering gas-phase chemistry and water gas-grain exchanges through adsorption and desorption. Gas-phase water is predicted to arise from a region deep into the cloud, corresponding to a visual extinction of $A_{\mathrm{V}} \sim 9$, with a $\mathrm{H_2^{16}O}$ fractional abundance of $\sim 2\times 10^{-7}$ and column density of $(1.4 \pm 0.8) \times 10^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$ for a total cloud depth of $A_{\mathrm{V}}=15$. A line-of-sight average ortho-to-para ratio of $2.8 \pm 0.2$ is derived. The observational data are consistent with a nuclear spin isomer repartition corresponding to the thermal equilibrium at a temperature of $36 \pm 2$ K, much higher than the spin temperature previously reported for this region and close to the gas kinetic temperature in the water-emitting gas.