Title:SHAPEMOL: a 3-D code to calculate molecular line emission in planetary and protoplanetary nebulae

Abstract:
Modern instrumentation in radioastronomy constitutes a valuable tool for studying the Universe: ALMA will 
reach unprecedented sensitivities and spatial resolution, while Herschel/HIFI has opened a new window for 
probing molecular warm gas (~50-1000 K). On the other hand, the SHAPE software has emerged in the 
last few years as the standard tool for determining the morphology and velocity field of different kinds of 
gaseous emission nebulae via spatio-kinematical modelling. Standard SHAPE implements radiative 
transfer solving, but it is only available for atomic species and not for molecules.

Being aware of the growing importance of the development of tools for easying the analyses of molecular 
data from new era observatories, we introduce the computer code shapemol, a plug-in for SHAPE with 
which we intend to fill the so far empty molecular niche. Shapemol enables spatio-kinematic modeling with 
accurate non-LTE calculations of line excitation and radiative transfer in molecular species. Currently, it 
allows radiative transfer solving in the 12CO and 13CO J=1-0 to J=17-16 lines. Shapemol, used along 
SHAPE, allows to easily generate synthetic maps to test against interferometric observations, as well as 
synthetic line profiles to match single-dish observations.

We will give a brief description of how SHAPE+shapemol works, including a video demonstration of how to 
create a model nebula with molecular emission from scratch, and discuss its succesful application to the 
molecular envelope of the planetary nebula NGC 7027.