Searching for sulphur polymers in young protostars with Herschel and ALMA
Résumé
Sulphur is a long-standing problem in the chemistry of the interstellar medium. This element is highly depleted on interstellar grains in dense sources but in an unobserved form. We have started to develop new clues regarding the form of the depleted sulphur using detailed modelling of the sulphur chemistry and comparisons with observations (Wakelam et al. 2004). This previous study underlined the possibility for sulphur to be depleted on grains in a polymeric form from S to S8 in complexity. Some of the lines of these species can be observed with ALMA and will require the high ALMA sensitivity and spatial resolution to be detected. In this contribution we discuss how possible ALMA observations could help to give constraints on the abundance of S-polymers. Finding these species would be an important step inthe understanding of the chemistry in both molecular clouds and protostars.