H 2 formation on interstellar dust grains: the viewpoints of theory, experiments, models and observations

Valentine Wakelam (1, 2) , Emeric E. Bron (3) , Stephanie Cazaux (4) , Francois Dulieu (5) , Cecile Gry (6) , Pierre Guillard (7) , Emilie Habart (8) , Liv Hornekaer (9) , Sabine Morisset (10) , Gunnar Nyman (11) , Valerio Pirronello (12) , Stephen Price (13) , Valeska Valdivia (14) , Gianfranco Vidali (15) , Naoki Watanabe (16)

1 AMOR 2017
2 LAB - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux [Pessac]
3 ICMM - Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid
4 TU Delft - Delft University of Technology
5 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
6 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
7 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
8 IAS - Institut d'astrophysique spatiale
9 iNANO - Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center
10 Laboratoire des Collisions Atomiques et Moléculaires
11 GU - Göteborgs Universitet = University of Gothenburg
12 Unict - Università degli studi di Catania = University of Catania
13 UCL - University College of London [London]
14 LRA - Laboratoire de Radioastronomie
15 Physics Department - Syracuse University
16 Institute of Low Temperature Science [Sapporo]

Molecular hydrogen is the most abundant molecule in the universe. It is the first one to form and survive photo-dissociation in tenuous environments. Its formation involves catalytic reactions on the surface of interstellar grains. The micro-physics of the formation process has been investigated intensively in the last 20 years, in parallel of new astrophysical observational and modeling progresses. In the perspectives of the probable revolution brought by the future satellite JWST, this article has been written to present what we think we know about the H 2 formation in a variety of interstellar environments.

Mots clés: Interstellar medium; Astrochemistry; Molecular hydrogen; Grain surface chemistry; Interstellar medium

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]

Valentine Wakelam, Emeric E. Bron, Stephanie Cazaux, Francois Dulieu, Cecile Gry, et al.. H 2 formation on interstellar dust grains: the viewpoints of theory, experiments, models and observations. Molecular Astrophysics, 2017, 9, pp.1-36. ⟨10.1016/j.molap.2017.11.001⟩. ⟨hal-01800298⟩