Interstellar molecular clouds are objects in the interstellar medium which are the birthplaces of stars. Thus, understanding their structure, origin, and evolution is critical for understanding the life cycle of stars. A type of cloud called a diffuse molecular cloud is especially well-suited to studies of the chemistry of the molecular gas component. The low gas and dust column densities of these systems makes their astrochemistry much simpler than that of typical dark or giant molecular clouds. The student will carry out a computational study of the astrochemistry of diffuse molecular clouds, solving a scheme of reactions to produce models of the chemical abundances as a function of the gas column density. Knowledge of FORTRAN or C is necessary for this project.

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