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Some molecules, for example water and many complex organic molecules, are expected to play a key role in the emergence of life. They are detected in various astrophysical environments (e.g., low- and high-mass star-forming regions, prestellar cores, outflows, protoplanetary disks, comets). In particular, they are found to be highly abundant in the warm inner regions of protostars, where planets are expected to form. These molecules may survive during the star formation process and be incorporated into asteroids and comets, which could deliver them to planetary embryos through impacts. It is consequently important to understand how they form and how they evolve towards more complexity.
With its high sensitivity, high spatial and high spectral resolution, the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array (ALMA) revolutionized our understanding of the chemistry in the warm inner regions of star-forming regions. In this seminar, I will present some recent observational results from the ALMA-PILS program, an unbiased spectral survey of the solar-type protostar IRAS 16293-2422 with ALMA. This sensitive survey allows us to search for new molecules as well as their less abundant isotopologues (D, 13C, 15N), which can provide useful information on the formation of molecules. Combined with observations, chemical modelling is also very helpful to constrain the formation pathways of molecules.
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