Chemistry in Evaporating Ices: Unexplored Territory

Abstract

We suggest that three-body chemistry may occur in warm high density gas evaporating in transient co\textendash desorption events on interstellar ices. Using a highly idealised computational model we explore the chemical conversion from simple species of the ice to more complex species containing several heavy atoms, as a function of density and of adopted three body rate coefficients. We predict that there is a wide range of densities and rate coefficients in which a significant chemical conversion may occur. We discuss the implications of this idea for the astrochemistry of hot cores.