CHEMISTRY IN DIFFUSE CLOUDS WITH TRANSIENT MICROSTRUCTURE

Microstructure is observed on many lines of sight in the diffuse interstellar medium, mainly through variations in atomic line absorptions on timescales of a decade or less. This timescale implies that microstructure exists on a size scale comparable with that of the solar system; it is overpressured and transient. Both observations and theory confirm that a specific chemistry occurs in microstructure. We therefore explore a model of diffuse interstellar gas in which the chemistry in diffuse clouds is supplemented by chemistry in many transient and tiny perturbations. These perturbations are here assumed to be of unidentified origin, but it is assumed that ambipolar diffusion occurs within them. For plausible physical parameters, we find that this model can account for the range of molecular column densities observed in diffuse clouds, including species not usually accounted for by conventional models. Some molecular ions, predicted to be generated in the microstructure (including HS(+), CH(2)(+), CH(3)(+), H(2)O(+), and H(3)O(+)) but not yet observed in diffuse clouds, should be present at levels that may allow their detection.