Radiative cooling functions for primordial molecules

Abstract

Cooling of primordial gas plays a crucial role in the birth of the first structures in our Universe. Due to the low fractional abundance of molecular species at high redshifts, spontaneous emission rather than collisions represents the most efficient way to cool the pristine plasma. In the present work, radiative cooling functions are evaluated for the diatomic species HD, HD+, HeH+, LiH and LiH+. Cooling functions for the triatomic ions H+3 and H2D+ are also considered. Analytic fits as functions of temperature are provided.