Astrochemical Surveys At IRAM (ASAI): Exploring our Chemical Origins
Bertrand Le Floch
The Large Program ASAI carried out at the IRAM 30m telescope joins the
efforts of several groups in Astrochemistry, in Spain and France, to
address the question of our “chemical origins”. Its goal is to obtain a
complete census of the gas chemical composition, including pre-biotic
molecules, and its evolution along the main stages of the star formation
process, from prestellar cores and protostars to protoplanetary disks. This
is achieved through highly sensitive and systematic spectral line surveys
of a sample of sources illustrative of the various stages of protostellar
evolution. The resulting data set is aimed to serve as a reference database
for the astrochemical community: astronomers, chemists, and theoreticians.
The first results of ASAI show a strong chemical differentiation between
the various stages of protostellar evolution. New molecular species have
been discovered, both in prestellar cores and in protostellar shocks,
opening the door to pre-biotic chemistry in these environments. I will
discuss these results and their implication on the emergence of molecular
complexity in solar-type star forming systems.