Eric Pellegrini
Michigan State University

"Exploring an Alternative Equation of State for Star Forming Regions"

Star forming regions can be separated into 4 zones, a 10^6K x-ray bubble, a hot 10^4K layer emitting the classical spectrum of a H+ region. Then there is a warm 100-500K region of H0 called the a Photo Dissociation Region (PDR) regulating the transfer of energy to the last zone, the molecular cloud. In the past each of these regions were treated with separate modeling techniques. I will discuss recent work using observations and modeling to treat all zones self consistently. In particular, I will present recent results that show pressure from magnetic fields dominates the equation of state in the PDR and the molecular gas and enhances cosmic ray density, altering the chemistry.