70^th Uchu Forum

Astrochemisry of Water

Yuri Aikawa

University of Tsukuba, Center for Computational Sciences, Theoretical Astrophysics Group

Abstract

We focus on the water molecule, as an example of research on interstellar chemistry. Water is one of the important molecules that determine the earth's surface environment. Where did water come from? Because the earths oceans contain high concentrations the deuterium isotope, the water is believed to originate in molecular clouds or the cold outer regions of the protoplanetary disc. Indeed, water molecules are abundant in the molecular clouds, and contain about 10 percent of the oxygen in the universe. In this talk, I present an overview of interstellar chemistry models used in molecular cloud formation and protoplanetary discs, with particular focus on water, and compare their predictions to recent observation of the deuterium ratio in molecular clouds and with observations of comets.