- French National Centre for Scientific Research France
- University of Virginia United States
- Radboud University Nijmegen Netherlands
- University of Bordeaux France
- Université Paris Diderot France
2013, IX, 349 p. 79 illus., 55 in color; International audience; We discuss models that astrochemists have developed to study the chemical composition of the interstellar medium. These models aim at computing the evolution of the chemical composition of a mixture of gas and dust under astrophysical conditions. These conditions, as well as the geometry and the physical dynamics, have to be adapted to the objects being studied because different classes of objects have very different characteristics (temperatures, densities, UV radiation fields, geometry, history etc); e.g., proto-planetary disks do not have the same characteristics as proto-stellar envelopes. Chemical models are being improved continually thanks to comparisons with observations but also thanks to laboratory and theoretical work in which the individual processes are studied.