Étudiant : ANDREU Audrey
Directeur de thèse : COUTENS Audrey (IRAP) et VASTEL Charlotte (IRAP)
Début de thèse : Septembre 2021
Groupe thématique : MICMAC
Stars form in the shielded interiors of molecular clouds. From the formation of dense and cold cores up to the formation of protoplanetary disks, significant physical changes occur, which affects the chemistry and consequently the chemical composition of the forming planets. Isotopic fractionation, especially deuterium fractionation, is extremely sensitive to physical conditions and is consequently one of the best tools to retrace the evolution of molecules during the star formation process.
The PhD thesis is part of the ERC project Chemtrip, whose ultimate goal is to reconstruct the physico-chemical evolution from the deeply embedded protostellar stage to the planet forming disk stage, through multi-source
analyses of high angular resolution observations combined with chemical modeling studies.
The thesis will consist in characterizing the variation of the isotopic fractionation of various molecules, including water, both spatially and with the evolutionary stage. The student will work on already existing NOEMA and ALMA data of solar-type protostars as well as new data that will be gathered during the thesis. The identification of the processes responsible for the isotopic fractionation will be done in collaboration with chemical modeling
experts.