Towards laboratory line lists to search for CH3OD and 13CH3OD in space

Xu, Li-Hong

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/100652 Copy

Description

Title

Towards laboratory line lists to search for CH3OD and 13CH3OD in space

Author(s)

Xu, Li-Hong

Contributor(s)

• Menten, Karl M.
• Schlemmer, Stephan
• Lewen, Frank
• Müller, Holger S. P.
• Zakharenko, Olena
• Lees, Ronald M.

Issue Date

2018-06-19

Keyword(s)

Astronomy

Abstract

Understanding how, when, and where complex organic and potentially prebiotic molecules are formed is a fundamental goal of astrophysics and astrochemistry and an integral part of origins-of-life studies. The recent images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) of a potentially planet-forming disk around a young star with an age of only 0.5-1 Myr (million years) have highlighted the importance of the physics and chemistry of the early protostellar stages. A particular focus of ALMA observations is the search for complex molecules in regions of high- and low-mass star formation. Methanol is among the most abundant molecules in star-forming regions, to such an extent that it is considered as an interstellar ”weed”. Thus, its numerous isotopologues must be accounted for in search for new complex molecules as yet unknown. Here, CalculatusEliminatus approach – ”. . . can help an awful lot. The way to find a missing something is to find out where it’s not!” a In other words, if we establish all the knowns, then we can focus on the remaining unknowns. This talk will report progress in our current effort in our on-going journey to pursue the weeding of the cosmos, focusing on CH3OD and 13CH3OD. While CH3OD is of great interest to a considerable fraction of the radio astronomical community, the significance of 13CH3OD originates from Protostellar Interferometric Line Survey (PILS) b of the low-mass protostars IRAS 16291-2422 with ALMA. Here, many lines of CH3OH, 13CH3OH and even CH2DOH are optically thick, so that the ratio of CH3OD to 13CH3OD may serve as a valuable probe of the 12C/13C ratio of methanol. New laboratory measurements obtained at Universitat zu K ¨ oln will be described for: (i) sample mixture of ¨ 13CH3OH and CH3OD yielding enriched 13CH3OD features from approximately 134 GHz to 510 GHz and (ii) CH3OD from approximately 154 GHz to 510 GHz and from 1.12 THz to 1.34 THz.

Publisher

International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy

Type of Resource

text

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/100652

DOI

10.15278/isms.2018.TL02

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2018 Li-Hong Xu

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