Search

Urea, NH2C(O)NH2, is a molecule of great importance in organic chemistry and biology. Two searches for urea in the interstellar medium were reported in the past, but neither were conclusive. We want to take advantage of the increased sensitivity and angular resolution provided by ALMA to search for urea toward the hot cores embedded in the high-mass star forming region Sgr B2(N). We use the new spectral line survey ReMoCA performed toward Sgr B2(N) with ALMA in its observing cycle 4. The spectra are analyzed under the LTE approximation. We construct a full synthetic spectrum that includes all the molecules identified so far. We use new spectroscopic predictions for urea in its vibrational ground state and first vibrationally excited state to search for this complex organic molecule in the ReMoCA data set. We employ the gas-grain chemical kinetics model MAGICKAL to interpret the astronomical observations. We report the secure detection of urea toward the hot core Sgr B2(N1) at a position called N1S slightly offset from the continuum peak, which avoids obscuration by the dust.. We derive a column density of 2.7x10^16 cm-2 for urea, two orders of magnitude lower than formamide, and one order of magnitude below methyl isocyanate, acetamide, and N-methylformamide. The latter molecule is reliably identified toward N1S with 60 clearly detected lines, confirming an earlier claim of its tentative interstellar detection. We report the first interstellar detections of NH2CH18O and 15NH2CHO. We also report the nondetection of urea toward the secondary hot core Sgr B2(N2) with an abundance relative to the other four species at least one order of magnitude lower than toward the main hot core. Our chemical model roughly reproduces the relative abundances of formamide, methyl isocyanate, acetamide, and N-methylformamide, but it overproduces urea by at least one order of magnitude., Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. The abstract has been shortened to comply with the size limit set by arXiv. A few minor corrections were applied to version 2

Thioformaldehyde is an abundant molecule in various regions of the interstellar medium. However, available laboratory data limit the accuracies of calculated transition frequencies in the submillimeter region, in particular for minor isotopic species. We aim to determine spectroscopic parameters of isotopologs of H2CS that are accurate enough for predictions well into the submillimeter region. We investigated the laboratory rotational spectra of numerous isotopic species in natural isotopic composition almost continuously between 110 and 377 GHz. Individual lines were studied for most species in two frequency regions between 566 and 930 GHz. Further data were obtained for the three most abundant species in the 1290-1390 GHz region. New or improved spectroscopic parameters were determined for seven isotopic species. Quantum-chemical calculations were carried out to evaluate the differences between ground state and equilibrium rotational parameters to derive semi-empirical equilibrium structural parameters. The spectroscopic parameters are accurate enough for predictions well above 1 THz with the exception of H2(13)C(34)S where the predictions should be reliable to around 700 GHz., Comment: Astron. Astrophys., in press; 12 pages

New laboratory data of CH$_2$CHCN (vinyl cyanide) in its ground and vibrationally excited states at the microwave to THz domain allow searching for these excited state transitions in the Orion-KL line survey. Frequency-modulated spectrometers combined into a single broadband 50-1900 GHz spectrum provided measurements of CH$_2$CHCN covering a spectral range of 18-1893 GHz, whose assignments was confirmed by Stark modulation spectra in the 18-40 GHz region and by ab-initio anharmonic force field calculations. For analyzing the emission lines of CH$_2$CHCN species detected in Orion-KL we used the excitation and radiative transfer code (MADEX) at LTE conditions. The rotational transitions of the ground state of this molecule emerge from four cloud components of hot core nature which trace the physical and chemical conditions of high mass star forming regions in the Orion-KL Nebula. The total column density of CH$_2$CHCN in the ground state is (3.0$\pm$0.9)x10$^{15}$ cm$^{-2}$. We report on the first interstellar detection of transitions in the v10=1/(v11=1,v15=1) dyad in space, and in the v11=2 and v11=3 states in Orion-KL. The lowest energy vibrationally excited states of vinyl cyanide such as v11=1 (at 328.5 K), v15=1 (at 478.6 K), v11=2 (at 657.8 K), the v10=1/(v11=1,v15=1) dyad (at 806.4/809.9 K), and v11=3 (at 987.9 K) are populated under warm and dense conditions, so they probe the hottest parts of the Orion-KL source. Column density and rotational and vibrational temperatures for CH$_2$CHCN in their ground and excited states, as well as for the isotopologues, have been constrained by means of a sample of more than 1000 lines in this survey. Moreover, we present the detection of methyl isocyanide (CH$_3$NC) for the first time in Orion-KL and a tentative detection of vinyl isocyanide (CH$_2$CHNC) and give column density ratios between the cyanide and isocyanide isomers., Comment: 46 pages, 22 figures, 14 tables, 9 online tables