Open AccessTime‐dependent evaporation of icy mantles in hot cores
Author(s) -
Viti Serena,
Williams David A.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
monthly notices of the royal astronomical society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.058
H-Index - 383
eISSN - 1365-2966
pISSN - 0035-8711
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-8711.1999.02447.x
Subject(s) - physics , evaporation , astrophysics , hot spot (computer programming) , stars , core (optical fiber) , time sequence , scale (ratio) , astrobiology , meteorology , optics , artificial intelligence , computer science , operating system , quantum mechanics
Hot cores are rich in saturated molecules that are believed to arise from the evaporation of molecular ices on dust grains. It is usually assumed that the ices are evaporated instantaneously when a nearby star is switched on. We have developed a new model in which the grain temperature rises over a time‐scale determined by the switch‐on time of the star. This time‐scale is likely to be comparable to the lifetime of the hot cores. In consequence, evaporation of different species occurs at different epochs, leading to chemical differentiation in time and space within the hot core. By computing qualitative models of hot cores, we show that observations of hot cores may be able to constrain the rise time of hot stars to the main sequence.