ALMA and Herschel observations of hot cores and corinos

Abstract

The formation of stars and planetary systems takes place in "mol. clouds". These dense, cold regions of the interstellar medium, composed primarily of mol. hydrogen, exhibit nevertheless a high degree of mol. complexity. About one third of the approx. 200 known interstellar and circumstellar mols. are the so-called "complex orgs.", defined as mols. contg. 6 or more atoms. How this mol. complexity develops, and how far it progresses before the mols. are incorporated as ices into planetesimals in protoplanetary disks, are key questions of today's astrochem., which studies the mol. complexity through a combination of astronomical observations, theor. computations, and lab. expts. Both gas-phase and grain-surface processes play an important role, and understanding the interactions between the gas phase and the ice surfaces is of key importance. Mol. hot cores and hot corinos, dense, compact regions heated by UV photons from newly formed stars, where mantle ices evap. into the gas phase are of particular importance, as the mols. produced by grain-surface reactions can be studied by means of the high-resoln. rotational spectroscopy. I review recent progress in our understanding of these regions made through observations using Herschel and ALMA.