Benchmarking PDR models against the Horsehead edge

J. Pety (1, 2) , J. R. Goicoechea (2) , M. Gerin (2) , Pierre Hily-Blant (1) , D. Teyssier (3) , E. Roueff (4) , E. Habart (5) , A. Abergel (5)

1 IRAM - Institut de RadioAstronomie Millimétrique
2 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
3 ESAC - European Space Astronomy Centre
4 LUTH (UMR_8102) - Laboratoire Univers et Théories
5 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale

To prepare for the unprecedented spatial and spectral resolution provided by ALMA and Herschel/HIFI, chemical models are being benchmarked against each other. It is obvious that chemical models also need well-constrained observations that can serve as references. Photo-dissociation regions (PDRs) are particularly well suited to serve as references because they make the link between diffuse and molecular clouds, thus enabling astronomers to probe a large variety of physical and chemical processes. At a distance of 400 pc (1'' corresponding to 0.002 pc), the Horsehead PDR is very close to the prototypical kind of source (i.e. 1D, edge-on) needed to serve as a reference to models.

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

J. Pety, J. R. Goicoechea, M. Gerin, Pierre Hily-Blant, D. Teyssier, et al.. Benchmarking PDR models against the Horsehead edge. SF2A-2006: Annual meeting of the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Jun 2006, France. pp.247. ⟨hal-00121383⟩