Hydrogen Fluoride in High-Mass Star-forming Regions

Abstract

Hydrogen fluoride (HF) has been established to be an excellent tracer of molecular hydrogen in diffuse clouds. In denser environments, however, the HF abundance has been shown to be approximately two orders of magnitude lower. We present Herschel/HIFI observations of HF J = 1-0 toward two high-mass star formation sites, NGC 6334 I and AFGL 2591. In NGC 6334 I the HF line is seen in absorption in foreground clouds and the source itself, while in AFGL 2591 HF is partially in emission. We find an HF abundance with respect to H_2 of 1.5 × 10^(–8) in the diffuse foreground clouds, whereas in the denser parts of NGC 6334 I we derive a lower limit on the HF abundance of 5 × 10^(–10). Lower HF abundances in dense clouds are most likely caused by freezeout of HF molecules onto dust grains in high-density gas. In AFGL 2591, the view of the hot core is obstructed by absorption in the massive outflow, in which HF is also very abundant (3.6 × 10^(–8)) due to the desorption by sputtering. These observations provide further evidence that the chemistry of interstellar fluorine is controlled by freezeout onto gas grains.