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Published in

American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 1(957), p. 4, 2023

DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/acf320

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Laboratory Measurement of CH<sub>2</sub>DOH Line Intensities in the Millimeter-wave Region

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

Abstract Deuterium fractionation in molecules is known as one of the most powerful tools to study chemical processes during star and planet formation. Among various interstellar molecules, methanol often shows very high deuterium fractionation. It is the most abundant saturated organic molecule and is known as a parent species to form more complex organic molecules. However, deriving the abundance of deuterated methanol suffers from the uncertainty in the intrinsic line intensities (S μ 2) of CH3OH isotopologues. Due to their floppy nature, theoretical evaluation of the S μ 2 values is not straightforward, particularly for asymmetric-top asymmetric-frame isotopologues such as CH2DOH. In this study, we have measured the line frequencies and their intensities for CH2DOH in the millimeter-wave region from 216 to 264 GHz by using an emission-type millimeter and submillimeter-wave spectrometer. For the a-type J = 5 − 4 transition, the derived S μ 2 values are 13%–27% larger than those theoretically calculated, except for the transitions of K a = 2 for e 0 and K a = 1 for e 1 affected by avoided level crossing. For b-type transitions, significant systematic differences are found between theoretical and experimental S μ 2 values. The results of the present study enable us to accurately derive from observations the CH2DOH abundances, which are essential for understanding deuterium fractionation in various sources.