Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Astron. Space Sci.
Sec. Astrochemistry
Volume 11 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspas.2024.1427048
This article is part of the Research Topic Seeing that Which Remains Hidden: Tracer and Proxy Species in Astrochemistry View all 4 articles

Understanding the Various Evolutionary Stages of the Low-mass Star-formation Process by SO and SO2

Provisionally accepted
Rana Ghosh Rana Ghosh 1Ankan Das Ankan Das 2Prasanta Gorai Prasanta Gorai 3*Suman K. Mondal Suman K. Mondal 4Kenji Furuya Kenji Furuya 5Kei E. Tanaka Kei E. Tanaka 6Takashi Shimonishi Takashi Shimonishi 7
  • 1 Indian Centre for Space Physics, Calcutta, India
  • 2 Institute of Astronomy Space and Earth Science (IASES), Kolkata, West Bengal, India
  • 3 Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  • 4 S.N. Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences, Calcutta, India
  • 5 National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), Mitaka, Tōkyō, Japan
  • 6 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, School of Science, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Meguro City, Tōkyō, Japan
  • 7 Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, Nishi-ku, Niigata, Japan

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    SO and SO 2 would be the two potential candidates to trace the different evolutionary phases of low-mass star-formation process. Here, we report observations of SO, SO 2 along with their isotopologues, 34 SO and 34 SO 2 in four distinct phases of the low-mass star-formation process (prestellar core, first hydrostatic core, Class 0, and Class I) with an unbiased survey carried out with the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimetrique (IRAM) 30m telescope. Interestingly, the estimated abundances of SO and SO 2 show an increasing trend from the prestellar phase to the Class 0 stage and then a decrease in the Class I phase. A similar trend is obtained for OCS and H 2 S. In contrast, the obtained SO/SO 2 ratio decreases gradually from the prestellar core to the Class I stage. We have used the three-phase Rokko chemical code to explain our observations. The modeled abundances of SO and SO 2 exhibit an increase within the inner region as the cold gas transforms into a hot gas. The modeled abundance ratio of SO to SO 2 exhibits a notably high value in cold gas environments. This ratio decreases to less than 1 within the temperature range of 100-300 K and then increases to around 1 beyond 300 K. In the outer region, the simulated ratio consistently exceeds the value of 1. Our work is an observational testbed for modeling the chemistry of SO/SO 2 during low-mass star formation. However, our findings may require more sample sources with higher resolution and a more robust model for validation.

    Keywords: astrochemistry, ISM: stars -formation, ISM: molecules, ISM: abundances, Low-mass star formation

    Received: 02 May 2024; Accepted: 30 Aug 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Ghosh, Das, Gorai, Mondal, Furuya, Tanaka and Shimonishi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Prasanta Gorai, Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0315, Oslo, Norway

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.