Emma Bakes

The frontiers of organic astrochemistry are explored using computational models to simulate the chemical processes occurring in the tenuous matter between the stars. The interstellar medium (ISM) has two components, namely gas (comprised of atoms and molecules) and dust, which is formed from silicates and carbonaceous material. The dust component forms a size distribution, ranging from 100 pm to a m m. This lecture will cover the carbonaceous component, to investigate how carbon molecules and small carbon dust grains charge up in the ISM and how this knowledge can then be applied to probing the thermal and chemical structure of these regions. The physical conditions present in the ISM cover a wide range of gas temperatures, densities and radiation field strengths, which directly affect the thermal balance. Conversely, we can expect the nature of the chemistry occurring to be rich and diverse. The results of these thermochemical models are observable in the infrared and we will discuss the comparability of the results of the models and the observational data.