Hydrogen molecular ions and the violent birth of the Solar System

Abstract

Many pieces of evidence indicate that the Solar System youth was marked by violent processes: among others, high fluxes of energetic particles (greater than or equal to 10 MeV) are unambiguously recorded in meteoritic material, where an overabundance of the short-lived 10 Be products is measured. Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain from where these energetic particles originate, but there is no consensus yet, mostly because of the scarcity of complementary observational constraints. In general, the reconstruction of the past history of the Solar System is best obtained by simultaneously considering what we know of it and of similar systems nowadays in formation. However, when it comes to studying the presence of energetic particles in young forming stars, we encounter the classical problem of the impossibility of directly detecting them toward the emitting source (analogously to what happens to galactic cosmic rays). Yet, exploiting the fact that energetic particles, such as cosmic rays, create H 3 + and that an enhanced abundance of H 3 + causes dramatic changes on the overall gas chemical composition, we can indirectly estimate the flux of energetic particles. This contribution provides an overview of the search for solar-like protostars permeated by energetic particles and the discovery of a protocluster, OMC-2 FIR4, where the phenomenon is presently occurring. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘Advances in hydrogen molecular ions: H 3 + , H 5 + and beyond’.