ALBERT

Description: We present strong detections of methyl cyanide (CH3CN), vinyl cyanide (CH2CHCN), ethyl cyanide (CH3CH2CN) and cyanodiacetylene (HC4CN) molecules with the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) toward the Sgr B2(N) molecular cloud. Attempts to detect the corresponding isocyanide isomers were only successful in the case of methyl isocyanide (CH3NC) for its J(sub K) = 1(sub 0) - 0(sub 0) transition, which is the first interstellar report of this line. To determine the spatial distribution of CH3NC, we used archival Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) array data for the J(sub K) = 1(sub 0) - 0(sub 0) transitions but no emission was detected. From ab initio calculations, the bonding energy difference between the cyanide and isocyanide molecules is greater than 8500 per centimeter (greater than 12,000 K). Thus, cyanides are the more stable isomers and would likely be formed more preferentially over their isocyanide counterparts. That we detect CH3NC emission with a single antenna (Gaussian beamsize(omega(sub B))=1723 arcsec(sup 2)) but not with an interferometer (omega(sub b)=192 arcsec(sup 2)), strongly suggests that CH3NC has a widespread spatial distribution toward the Sgr B2(N) region. Other investigators have shown that CH3CN is present both in the LMH hot core of Sgr B2(N) and in the surrounding medium, while we have shown that CH3NC appears to be deficient in the LMH hot core. Thus, largescale, non-thermal processes in the surrounding medium may account for the conversion of CH3CN to CH3NC while the LMH hot core, which is dominated by thermal processes, does not produce a significant amount of CH3NC. Ice analog experiments by other investigators have shown that radiation bombardment of CH3CN can produce CH3NC, thus supporting our observations. We conclude that isomers separated by such large bonding energy differences are distributed in different interstellar environments, making the evaluation of column density ratios between such isomers irrelevant unless it can be independently shown that these species are co-spatial.

Description: New interstellar molecules propenal (CH2CHCHO) and propanal (CH3CH2CHO) have been detected largely in absorption toward the star-forming region Sagittarius B2(N) by means of rotational transitions observed with the 100-m Green Bank Telescope (GBT) operating in the range of 18 GHz (lambda approximately 1.7 cm) to 26 GHz (lambda approximately 1.2 cm). The GBT was also used to observe the previously reported interstellar aldehyde propynal (HC2CHO) in Sagittarius B2(N) which is known for large molecules believed to form on interstellar grains. The presence of these three interstellar aldehydes toward Sagittarius B2(N) strongly suggests that simple hydrogen addition on interstellar grains accounts for successively larger molecular species: from propynal to propenal and from propenal to propanal. Energy sources within Sagittarius B2(N) likely permit the hydrogen addition reactions on grain surfaces to proceed. This work demonstrates that successive hydrogen addition is probably an important chemistry route in the formation of a number of complex interstellar molecules. We also searched for but did not detect the three-carbon sugar glyceraldehyde (CH2OHCHOHCHO).