Photochemical Heating of Dense Molecular Gas

Abstract

Photochemical heating is analyzed with emphasis on the heating generated by chemical reactions initiated by the products of photodissociation and photoionization. The immediate products are slowed down by collisions with the ambient gas and heat the gas. In addition to this direct process, heating is also produced by the subsequent chemical reactions initiated by these products. Some of this chemical heating comes from the kinetic energy of the reaction products and the rest from collisional de-excitation of the product atoms and molecules. In considering dense gas dominated by molecular hydrogen, we find that the chemical heating is sometimes as large if not much larger than the direct heating. In very dense gas the total photochemical heating approaches 10 eV per photodissociation (or photoionization), competitive with other ways of heating molecular gas.