scholarly journals Millimeter wave spectra of ethyl isocyanate and searches for it in Orion KL and Sagittarius B2

2018 ◽  
Vol 616 ◽  
pp. A173 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Kolesniková ◽  
E. R. Alonso ◽  
B. Tercero ◽  
J. Cernicharo ◽  
J. L. Alonso

Context. Relatively high abundances of methyl isocyanate (CH3NCO), a methyl derivative of isocyanic acid (HNCO), found in the Orion KL and Sgr B2 molecular clouds suggest that its ethyl derivative, ethyl isocyanate (CH3CH2NCO), may also be present. Aims. The aim of this work is to provide accurate experimental frequencies of ethyl isocyanate in its ground and excited vibrational states in the millimeter wave region to support searches for it in the interstellar medium. Methods. The rotational spectrum of ethyl isocyanate was recorded at room temperature from 80 to 340 GHz using the millimeter wave spectrometer in Valladolid. Assigned rotational transitions were analyzed using the S -reduced semirigid-rotor Hamiltonian. Results. More than 1100 distinct frequency lines were analyzed for the ground vibrational state of the cis conformer as well as for three vibrational satellites corresponding to successive excitation of the lowest-frequency C–N torsional mode. Newly determined rotational and centrifugal distortion constants were used for searches of spectral features of ethyl isocyanate in Orion KL and Sgr B2 clouds. Upper limits to CH3CH2NCO in these high-mass star-forming regions were obtained.

2018 ◽  
Vol 619 ◽  
pp. A92 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Bermúdez ◽  
B. Tercero ◽  
R. A. Motiyenko ◽  
L. Margulès ◽  
J. Cernicharo ◽  
...  

Context. The analysis of isomeric species of a compound observed in the interstellar medium (ISM) is a useful tool to understand the chemistry of complex organic molecules. It could, likewise, assist in the detection of new species. Aims. Our goal consists in analyzing one of the two most stable species of the C3H4O family, methyl ketene, whose actual rotational parameters are not precise enough to allow its detection in the ISM. The obtained parameters will be used to search for it in the high-mass star-forming regions Orion KL and Sagittarius B2, as well as in the cold dark clouds TMC-1 in the Taurus Molecular Cloud and Barnard 1 (B1–b). Methods. A millimeter-wave room-temperature rotational spectrum of methyl ketene was recorded from 50 to 330 GHz. The internal rotation analysis of its ground state and first torsional excited state was performed with the rho-axis method employing the RAM36 program. Results. More than 3000 transitions of the rotational spectrum of the ground state (Kamax = 18) and first torsional excited state (Kamax = 13) of methyl ketene were fitted using a Hamiltonian that contains 41 parameters with a root mean square of 44 kHz. Column density limits were calculated but no lines were detected in the ISM belonging to methyl ketene.


2018 ◽  
Vol 619 ◽  
pp. A67 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Kolesniková ◽  
I. Peña ◽  
E. R. Alonso ◽  
B. Tercero ◽  
J. Cernicharo ◽  
...  

Context. Methoxyacetaldehyde belongs to a group of structural isomers with the general formula C3H6O2, of which methyl acetate and ethyl formate are known interstellar molecules. Rotational data available for methoxyacetaldehyde are limited to 40 GHz, which makes predictions at higher frequencies rather uncertain.Aims. The aim of this work is to provide accurate experimental frequencies of methoxyacetaldehyde in the millimeter-wave region to support its detection in the interstellar medium.Methods. The rotational spectrum of methoxyacetaldehyde was recorded at room-temperature from 75 to 120 GHz and from 170 to 310 GHz using the millimeter-wave spectrometer in Valladolid. Additional measurements were also performed at conditions of supersonic expansion from 6 to 18 GHz. The assigned rotational transitions were analyzed using theS-reduced semirigid-rotor Hamiltonian.Results. We newly assigned over 1000 lines for the most stable conformer of methoxyacetaldehyde in its ground state and five lowest excited vibrational states, and precise sets of spectroscopic constants were obtained. We searched for spectral features of methoxyacetaldehyde in the high-mass star-forming regions Orion KL and Sagittarius B2, as well as in the cold dark cloud Barnard 1 (B1-b). No lines belonging to methoxyacetaldehyde were detected above the detection limit of our data. We provide upper limits to the methoxyacetaldehyde colum density in these sources.


2019 ◽  
Vol 628 ◽  
pp. A53
Author(s):  
B. M. Giuliano ◽  
L. Bizzocchi ◽  
A. Pietropolli Charmet ◽  
B. E. Arenas ◽  
A. L. Steber ◽  
...  

Context. Organic ring compounds play a key role in terrestrial biochemistry, and they were also most likely pivotal ingredients in Earth’s prebiotic chemistry. The five-membered ring imidazole, c-C3N2H4, is a substructure of fundamental biological molecules such as the purine nucleobases and the amino acid histidine. An unsuccessful search for imidazole in a sample of cold-core clouds and massive star-forming regions was performed almost 40 years ago. At that time, the spectroscopic knowledge of this species was scarce: the existing laboratory study was limited to the centimetre-wave region, and the precision of the rest frequencies in the millimetre regime was not adequate. Aims. The goal of the present work is to perform a comprehensive investigation of the rotational spectrum of imidazole in its ground vibrational state from the microwave region to the 1 mm wavelength regime. Methods. The rotational spectrum of imidazole was recorded in selected frequency regions from 2 to 295 GHz. These intervals were covered using various broadband spectrometers developed at DESY (Hamburg) and at the University of Virginia. High-level ab initio calculations were performed to obtain reliable estimates of the quartic and sextic centrifugal distortion constants. We used the EMoCA imaging spectral line survey to search for imidazole towards the hot molecular core Sgr B2(N2). Results. About 700 rotational transitions spanning a J interval from 0 to 59 and Kc interval from 0 to 30 were analysed using the Watson S-reduced Hamiltonian. These new data allowed the determination of a much extended set of spectroscopic parameters for imidazole in its vibrational ground state. The improved spectral data allow us to set an upper limit to the column density of imidazole in Sgr B2(N2). Its non-detection implies that it is at least 3400 times less abundant than ethyl cyanide in this source. Conclusions. With the new set of spectroscopic constants, it has been possible to compute reliable rest frequencies at millimetre wavelengths. We suggest a search for imidazole towards TMC-1, where the aromatic molecule benzonitrile was recently detected.


2020 ◽  
Vol 642 ◽  
pp. A29 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. Motiyenko ◽  
A. Belloche ◽  
R. T. Garrod ◽  
L. Margulès ◽  
H. S. P. Müller ◽  
...  

Context. Thioformamide NH2CHS is a sulfur-bearing analog of formamide NH2CHO. The latter was detected in the interstellar medium back in the 1970s. Most of the sulfur-containing molecules detected in the interstellar medium are analogs of corresponding oxygen-containing compounds. Therefore, thioformamide is an interesting candidate for a search in the interstellar medium. Aims. A previous study of the rotational spectrum of thioformamide was limited to frequencies below 70 GHz and to transitions with J ≤ 3. The aim of this study is to provide accurate spectroscopic parameters and rotational transition frequencies for thioformamide to enable astronomical searches for this molecule using radio telescope arrays at millimeter wavelengths. Methods. The rotational spectrum of thioformamide was measured and analyzed in the frequency range 150−660 GHz using the Lille spectrometer. We searched for thioformamide toward the high-mass star-forming region Sagittarius (Sgr) B2(N) using the ReMoCA spectral line survey carried out with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Results. Accurate rigid rotor and centrifugal distortion constants were obtained from the analysis of the ground state of parent, 34S, 13C, and 15N singly substituted isotopic species of thioformamide. In addition, for the parent isotopolog, the lowest two excited vibrational states, v12 = 1 and v9 = 1, were analyzed using a model that takes Coriolis coupling into account. Thioformamide was not detected toward the hot cores Sgr B2(N1S) and Sgr B2(N2). The sensitive upper limits indicate that thioformamide is nearly three orders of magnitude at least less abundant than formamide. This is markedly different from methanethiol, which is only about two orders of magnitude less abundant than methanol in both sources. Conclusions. The different behavior shown by methanethiol versus thioformamide may be caused by the preferential formation of the latter (on grains) at late times and low temperatures, when CS abundances are depressed. This reduces the thioformamide-to-formamide ratio, because the HCS radical is not as readily available under these conditions.


2012 ◽  
Vol 538 ◽  
pp. A140 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. D. Klaassen ◽  
L. Testi ◽  
H. Beuther

2018 ◽  
Vol 609 ◽  
pp. A129 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Colzi ◽  
F. Fontani ◽  
P. Caselli ◽  
C. Ceccarelli ◽  
P. Hily-Blant ◽  
...  

The ratio between the two stable isotopes of nitrogen, 14N and 15N, is well measured in the terrestrial atmosphere (~272), and for the pre-solar nebula (~441, deduced from the solar wind). Interestingly, some pristine solar system materials show enrichments in 15N with respect to the pre-solar nebula value. However, it is not yet clear if and how these enrichments are linked to the past chemical history because we have only a limited number of measurements in dense star-forming regions. In this respect, dense cores, which are believed to be the precursors of clusters and also contain intermediate- and high-mass stars, are important targets because the solar system was probably born within a rich stellar cluster, and such clusters are formed in high-mass star-forming regions. The number of observations in such high-mass dense cores has remained limited so far. In this work, we show the results of IRAM-30 m observations of the J = 1−0 rotational transition of the molecules HCN and HNC and their 15N-bearing counterparts towards 27 intermediate- and high-mass dense cores that are divided almost equally into three evolutionary categories: high-mass starless cores, high-mass protostellar objects, and ultra-compact Hii regions. We have also observed the DNC(2–1) rotational transition in order to search for a relation between the isotopic ratios D/H and 14N/15N. We derive average 14N/15N ratios of 359 ± 16 in HCN and of 438 ± 21 in HNC, with a dispersion of about 150–200. We find no trend of the 14N/15N ratio with evolutionary stage. This result agrees with what has been found for N2H+ and its isotopologues in the same sources, although the 14N/15N ratios from N2H+ show a higher dispersion than in HCN/HNC, and on average, their uncertainties are larger as well. Moreover, we have found no correlation between D/H and 14N/15N in HNC. These findings indicate that (1) the chemical evolution does not seem to play a role in the fractionation of nitrogen, and that (2) the fractionation of hydrogen and nitrogen in these objects is not related.


2018 ◽  
Vol 609 ◽  
pp. A125 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Wienen ◽  
F. Wyrowski ◽  
K. M. Menten ◽  
J. S. Urquhart ◽  
C. M. Walmsley ◽  
...  

Context. The initial conditions of molecular clumps in which high-mass stars form are poorly understood. In particular, a more detailed study of the earliest evolutionary phases is needed. The APEX Telescope Large Area Survey of the whole inner Galactic disk at 870 μm, ATLASGAL, has therefore been conducted to discover high-mass star-forming regions at different evolutionary phases. Aims. We derive properties such as velocities, rotational temperatures, column densities, and abundances of a large sample of southern ATLASGAL clumps in the fourth quadrant. Methods. Using the Parkes telescope, we observed the NH3 (1, 1) to (3, 3) inversion transitions towards 354 dust clumps detected by ATLASGAL within a Galactic longitude range between 300° and 359° and a latitude within ± 1.5°. For a subsample of 289 sources, the N2H+ (1–0) line was measured with the Mopra telescope. Results. We measured a median NH3 (1, 1) line width of ~ 2 km s-1, rotational temperatures from 12 to 28 K with a mean of 18 K, and source-averaged NH3 abundances from 1.6 × 10-6 to 10-8. For a subsample with detected NH3 (2, 2) hyperfine components, we found that the commonly used method to compute the (2, 2) optical depth from the (1, 1) optical depth and the (2, 2) to (1, 1) main beam brightness temperature ratio leads to an underestimation of the rotational temperature and column density. A larger median virial parameter of ~ 1 is determined using the broader N2H+ line width than is estimated from the NH3 line width of ~ 0.5 with a general trend of a decreasing virial parameter with increasing gas mass. We obtain a rising NH3 (1, 1)/N2H+ line-width ratio with increasing rotational temperature. Conclusions. A comparison of NH3 line parameters of ATLASGAL clumps to cores in nearby molecular clouds reveals smaller velocity dispersions in low-mass than high-mass star-forming regions and a warmer surrounding of ATLASGAL clumps than the surrounding of low-mass cores. The NH3 (1, 1) inversion transition of 49% of the sources shows hyperfine structure anomalies. The intensity ratio of the outer hyperfine structure lines with a median of 1.27 ± 0.03 and a standard deviation of 0.45 is significantly higher than 1, while the intensity ratios of the inner satellites with a median of 0.9 ± 0.02 and standard deviation of 0.3 and the sum of the inner and outer hyperfine components with a median of 1.06 ± 0.02 and standard deviation of 0.37 are closer to 1.


Author(s):  
Antonio Chrysostomou ◽  
Martin Houde ◽  
Brenda C. Matthews

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