Reflections on the photodissociation of CO in circumstellar envelopes

Carbon monoxide (CO) is the most abundant molecule after molecular hydrogen and is important for the chemistry in circumstellar envelopes around evolved stars. When modelling the strength and shape of molecular lines, the size of the CO envelope is an input parameter and influences the derived mass-loss rates. In particular the low-J transition CO lines are sensitive to the CO photodissociation radius. Recently, new CO photodissociation radii have been published using different formalisms that differ considerably. One set of calculations is based on an escape-probability formalism that uses numerical approximations derived in the early 1980s. The accuracy of these approximations is investigated and it is shown that they are less accurate than claimed. Improved formalism are derived. Nevertheless, the changes in the CO envelope size are small to moderate and less than 2% for models with 10 −7 < Ṁ < 10 −4 M ⊙ yr −1 and at most 7% for model with Ṁ = 10 −8 M ⊙ yr −1