Helmut Wiesemeyer
Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR)
The chemistry of astrophysical environments - synergies between far-infrared spectroscopy and laboratory experiments, and future directions
H. Wiesemeyer (1), R. Güsten (1), P. Hartogh (2), D.A. Neufeld (3)
(1) Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany (2) Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany (3) Department of Physics & Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
With the advent of instrumentation for infrared spectroscopy at high resolution, the detailedness of the observational results and their interpretation calls for accurate spectroscopic parameters and cross-sections for collisional excitation, photochemistry, and chemical reactions. They are obtainable thanks to methods involving both molecular quantum mechanics and experiments, conducted under conditions that are relevant for astrophysical environments. In turn, the obtained parameters are fed into chemical reaction networks and excitation- and radiative-transfer modeling, aiming at the best possible description of observational data, of which many were collected, often exclusively, by SOFIA. Rather than focusing on a single environment, this contribution presents selected examples from primordial chemistry, the Galactic interstellar medium, stellar evolution, and the solar system. Despite their separation in space, time, and nature, these environments and their history also share common principles connecting them.
