Interstellar medium: physical

Chemistry without numbers is poetry astrochemistry without numbers is myth. A molecule placed around a star, in a nebula, lost in the interstellar medium, on a planet or within a cell has the potential for very complex and beautiful chemistry but unless we can understand the local conditions and how the molecule interacts with them we have no idea what chemistry is really happening. To understand astrochemistry we need to understand the physical conditions that occur within many diverse molecular environments. The exploration of the molecular universe will take us on a long journey through the wonders of astronomy to the new ideas of astrobiology... 

Kitchen C. R. 1987. Stars, Nebulae and the Interstellar Medium. Adam Hilger Bristol. Kuhn H. and Forsterlong H.-D. 2000. Principles of Physical Chemistry. Wiley Chichester. Morrison D., Wolff S. and Fraknoi A. 1995. Abel s Exploration of the Universe (7th edn). 

Ehrenfreund P., et al. (2003). Physics and chemistry of icy particles in the universe answers from microgravity. Planetary and Space Science 51 473-494 Emeline A. V. (2003). Abiogenesis and photo-stimulated heterogeneous reactions in the interstellar medium and on primitive Earth. Relevance to the genesis of life.. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology C 3 203. 

The existence and distribution of the chemical elements and their isotopes is a consequence of nuclear processes that have taken place in the past in the Big Bang and subsequently in stars and in the interstellar medium (ISM) where they are still ongoing. These processes are studied theoretically, experimentally and obser-vationally. Theories of cosmology, stellar evolution and interstellar processes are involved, as are laboratory investigations of nuclear and particle physics, cosmo-chemical studies of elemental and isotopic abundances in the Earth and meteorites and astronomical observations of the physical nature and chemical composition of stars, galaxies and the interstellar medium. 

Petrie and Bohme (2000) and Millar (1992) have studied the interstellar fullerene chemistry focusing on ion/molecule chemistry in various astrophysical environments. Fullerene based molecules could play a relevant role in the chemistry and physics of the interstellar medium and circumstellar environments (see also Watson et al. 2005 Webster 1991 Cataldo 2003). 

Herbst E (1995) Chemistry in the interstellar medium. Annu Rev Phys Chem 46 27-53 Herbst E (2001) The chemistry of interstellar space. Chem Soc Rev 30 168 Howard JB, Das Chowdhury K, Vander Sande JB (1994) Nature 370 603 Iglesias-Groth S (2003) Physisorption and photoabsorption of fullerenes. Implications physics and astrophysics, Ph.D. thesis. Universidad de La Laguna, Spain Iglesias-Groth S (2004) Astrophys J 608 L37 Jeolaika L, Sidis V (1999) Chem Phys Lett 300 157... 

Tielens AGGM (2005) The physics and chemistry of the interstellar medium. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge... 

Spitzer, L. 1978 In Physical processes in the interstellar medium. New York J. Wiley. 

Besides being of interest by themselves, interstellar molecules hdve become essential tools for astronomers, physicists and chemists interested in the study of the general properties of the interstellar medium. Areas which have been deeply influenced by the observation of interstellar molecules and where substantial new insight into physical and chemical processes have been gained can be placed into four large groups ... 

Spectroscopy covers a very wide area which has been widened further since the mid-1960s by the development of lasers and such techniques as photoelectron spectroscopy and other closely related spectroscopies. The importance of spectroscopy in the physical and chemical processes going on in planets, stars, comets and the interstellar medium has continued to grow as a result of the use of satellites and the building of radiotelescopes for the microwave and millimetre wave regions. 

The physics and chemistry of the ISM is perhaps the richest of all areas of study for astronomy and astrophysics, because it is so varied and because there exists so much complex information relating to the huge chemical machine that is the interstellar medium. 

Tielens, A. G. G. M. 2005, The Physics and Chemistry of the Interstellar Medium, Cambridge University Press. 

Laboratory astrophysics is not an oxymoron. Laboratory studies are one of the very few means to understand the chemical and physical processes that occur in the outlandish environments (by terrestrial standards) observed by astronomers. Such processes often occur under conditions that are far removed from what is considered normal by most chemists and physicists, and the application of a terrestrially honed chemical intuition to processes in astrophysical systems is likely to yield incorrect interpretations of the observations unless the environmental effects are carefully considered. The design of experiments that address processes active in astrophysical environments must also account for differences between the laboratory and reality. Often one finds that it is neither necessary or even desirable to carry out experiments under typical astrophysical conditions. Few funding agencies will support experiments lasting ten million (or even ten ) years to duplicate processes in the interstellar medium, and few institutions will hire or promote a... 

It is appropriate to begin this lecture with a diagram from the review of Shapiro Silberberg, 1970, which compares the abundances of elements in the cosmic radiation with solar system abundances. This classic measurement is one of the foundations of cosmic-ray physics. The elements lithium, beryllium and boron are quite abundant among cosmic rays even though they constitute only a tiny fraction of the material in the solar system and the interstellar medium. This fact is understood largely as the result of spallation of the... 

Being connected to the evolution of stars, SN studies overlap with practically all fields of the modern astronomy, from physics of tiny interstellar medium (e.g. [90]) to the formation of superdense neutron stars [82], As was also pioneered by Baade and Zwicky, they are sources of astrophysical shocks in which cosmic ray particles are accelerated [17]. 

T.A. Lozinskaya Supemovae and Stellar Wind in the Interstellar Medium, (Americam Inst, of Physics, New York 1992)... 

Solid icy surfaces are observed both in the interstellar medium as mantles on silicatic or carbonaceous grains and on many objects in the Solar System." In space, these icy targets are continuously bombarded by energetic ions from solar wind and flares, planetary magnetospheres, stellar winds and galactic cosmic rays. When an energetic ion collides with an icy target produces physico-chemical modifications in the latter. The study of those effects is based on laboratory ion irradiation experiments carried out under physical conditions as close as possible to the astrophysical ones. 

SPITZER, L. Jr., 1978, Physical Processes in the Interstellar Medium, John Wiley Sons, New York... 

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