Molecular ions in L1157-B1

This allows us to study the ionization structure and chemistry of the shock. An unbiased high-sensitivity survey of L1157-B1 performed with the IRAM-30m and Herschel/HIFI as part of the CHESS and ASAI large programs allows searching for molecular ions emission.

Then, by means of a radiative transfer code in the Large Velocity Gradient approximation, the gas physical conditions and fractional abundances of molecular ions are derived. The latter are compared with estimates of steady-state abundances in the cloud and their evolution in the shock calculated with the chemical model Astrochem.