Paul Goldsmith (JPL) : Herschel Observations of Molecular Oxygen in Orion

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the cosmos. In the gas phase, oxygen can be ionized, atomic, or in molecular, and it is also incorporated into interstellar grains. Models of the gas-phase chemistry in dense clouds predict molecular oxygen (O2) to be almost as abundant as carbon monoxide (CO). A number of searches for molecular oxygen have been carried out, including ground-based searches for the isotopologue 16O18O and searches for O2 in redshifted galaxies. Searches for Galactic O2 carried out with the SWAS and Odin spacecraft have yielded upper limits on the abundance of molecular oxygen typically 1 to 2 orders of magnitude below those predicted by gas-phase models. There has been a detection of a single transition of O2 in one source, again indicating a low abundance. A variety of explanations have been proposed to explain this low abundance. Some of these are based on depletion of atomic oxygen onto dust grains, resulting in incorporation of this species into water that remains on the grain surface. Available gas-phase oxygen is largely incorporated into CO, leaving little for gas-phase O2. Other models involve circulation of material between UV-irradiated and well-shielded regions, and highly clumpy cloud structure. The Herschel Open Time Key Project ``HOPʼʼ (Herschel Oxygen Project) addresses this important problem in astrochemistry, exploiting the high angular resolution and sensitivity of the Herschel HIFI instrument to observe 3 rotational transitions of O2 in a broad sample of molecular clouds. The sensitivity and angular resolution of HIFI are dramatically better than what has previously been available at these frequencies. We will discuss the HOP observations to date, focusing on the detection of O2 towards the H2 Peak 1 position near KL in Orion. This region has some interesting compact molecular sources that have emission in the same velocity range as found for the observed O2 lines and we explore a model based on warming grains and restoration of gas phase chemistry that can explain our observations. This region is also heavily impacted by the molecular outflow and resulting shocks which are manifest in the highly-structured emission from pure rotational and rotation-vibration transitions of molecular hydrogen. We discuss low-velocity C-shock models that can produce the observed column density of O2. We will conclude with a discussion of some of the implications for oxygen chemistry in dense interstellar clouds.