During the next decade a tremendous advance will take place in instrumentation for spectroscopy of the interstellar medium. Major new facilities (ALMA, SOFIA, APEX, LMT, Herschel and others) will be constructed and commissioned, so that the science opportu
Phillips,Vastel:Futuremmandsubmminstrumentation9
Berginetal.2001;L977:Alvesetal.1999;L1544:CaselliallowedrotationalstateoftheH+3moleculepermittedbyetal.1999;L1689B:Jessop&ward-Thompson2001;Bac-thePauliexclusionprinciple(~92K),thesevaluesare:mannetal.2002).Thesedecreasesinabundancehave Ea=~230K, Eb=~180Kand Ec=~230K.beeninterpretedasresultingfromthedepletionofmoleculesontodustgrains(see,e.g.,Bergin&Langer1997;Charn-ley1997).Itisnowclearthatthesedropsinabundance
separationaretypicalofalldensecores.Theremovalofthesere-activespeciesa ectsthegas-phasechemistryandpar-ticularlythedeuteriumfractionationwithinthecloud.+
H gy
Indeed,theremovalofspecieswhichwouldnormallyde-stroyH+3(e.g.CO;Roberts&Millar2000a)meansthattheH+3ismorelikelytoreactwithHDandproduceH2D+
(reaction4).
H2D+
hasbeendetectedtowardthelowluminosityproto-starsNGC1333IRAS4A(Starketal.1999)andIRAS16293-2422(Starketal.inpreparation)withaH2D+/H2ratioof3×10 12intheformer.Recently,Casellietal.(inpreparation)detectedtheH2D+
372GHz
linetowardstwopre-stellarcores,L1544andL1521F,bothprobablyonthevergeofcollapse.
4.4.ModificationoftheDeuteriumChemistry
Thelargedi erencesfoundinthevaluesofthedeuteriumabundanceintheinterstellarmediumposethequestionastothemechanismsresponsibleforthesevariations.Apos-sibleansweristhechemicalfractionationprocess,which,
incoldregionsoftheinterstellarmedium,steadilyforces
thedeuteriumintotheheavymolecules.Thetrend,isto
minimizethefreeenergy,whichimpliesformingtheheav-iestspecies,withtheleastuncertaintyenergy(seeFigure10).Asshownintheprevioussection,intheverycold(~
10K)regionswhere,e.g.ND3isdetected,COisinfactheavilydepletedbyaccretionontograins.Forexample,[CO/H2]~5×10 6(Bacmannetal.2002),leavingHDat[HD/H2]~5×10 5
asthemostabundantmolecule
availableforreactionwithH+3andH2D+
.Anotherexam-pleisthecaseofHD112µmabsorptiontowardsacoldmolecularcloudinthelineofsightofW49whereCauxetal.(2002)foundthatHDis12timesmoreabundantthanCO.Theresultmaybetheproductionofmorehighdeuteriumcontentmolecules:
H++HD←→H2D+
3+H2+ Ea(8)H2D++HD←→D2H++H2+ Eb(9)D2H++HD←→D+
3+H2+ Ec(10)
where Ea, Eband ingthezero-pointenergiescomputedbyCarney(1980),andtheenergyofthe rstH D+~ 550 KD H+~ 600 KD +~ 640 KFigure10.H+3,H2D+,D2H+
andD+3potentialenergydi-agram.
ThespeciesD2H+mayindeedbedetectableinsuf- cientlycold,COdepletedregions.Becauseofthelowtemperatureofthehighlydeuteratedregions(~10K),
thelowestlyingtransitionofH2D+andD2H+willbemostappropriateandcanbesearchedforinabsorptionagainstSagittariusB2,possibly:–H2D+101+ 000at1370.15GHz
–H2D211 212at1111.74GHz
–D2H+111 000at1476.60GHz
–D2H+220 211at1370.05GHz
Itappearstobepurelychancethatthesefrequenciesaresoclose.4.5.D,HDDepletedbyFractionation?
Itwouldbeadi culttasktomakeaninventoryofallDsubstitutedmolecularspeciesthroughouttheGalaxy,toseeifthemeasuredvaluesofthedeuteriumabundancecouldbea ected.Thefractionationmightworkinfavorofmetalspecies(e.g.ND3)inhighmetallicitygalaxies,
orinfavorofpurelyhydrogenicspecies(e.g.H2D+andD2H+)inlowmetallicityobjects.Atanyrate,wecanaskifitisphysicallypossiblefortheformercasetooc-cur.IfwetakethelocalvalueofC,NandOabundances
andcountthetotalnumberofbondsavailableforsub-stitutionofHbyD,weget3×10 3[H].But[D]/[H]is
only~10 5,sotheredoesexistthepossibilityofsuchane ect.Infact,iftheproductofthefractionofavail-ablebondsactuallyoccupiedbyD(fD)timesthefrac-
Ener