NASCENT-stars large program: origin of molecular complexity towards emerging high-mass protostars

During the star formation process, the interstellar medium gets enriched in a complex zoo of molecules. The extremely rich chemistry of the star forming gas holds the key to constrain the link between the chemistry of disks and their forming planetary systems. It is, however, unclear what are the key physical conditions that influence the emerging complex chemistry, and how the fundamental properties of the emerging star, or stellar clusters impact its evolution. In this context, wide-band receivers open a new era by allowing us to perform quasi-instantaneously spectral surveys that are required for a more robust estimation of molecular abundances. The NASCENT-stars project (PI: Csengeri) is a large observing program started in 2023 at the IRAM NOEMA observatory with 228 hours allocated at the telescope making use of the newly commissioned high spectral resolution (250 kHz) and wide-band observing mode. Overall, we observe a 46.5 GHz non-continuous bandwidth to characterize the physico-chemical conditions of the most active star forming regions of the Cygnus-X molecular complex at the scale of 1400 au probing statistically significant samples individual protostellar envelopes. I would like to highlight the first results of NASCENT-stars and our efforts to develop artificial intelligence and machine learning methods facilitating the exploitation of these rich datasets. Results of this project should pave the way to the spectacular science cases enabled by the ALMA WSU.