Astronomical Detection of H 2CCCC
Abstract
The carbon-chain carbene H2CCCC, a highly polar isomer of diacetylene recently identified in the laboratory, has been detected in the circumstellar shell of IRC + 10216 with the IRAM 30 m telescope. Eight transitions between 80 and 135 GHz have been assigned, all but two of the ortho symmetry species. The rotational temperature of H2CCCC in IRC + 10216 is 20 + or - 3 K, and the column density averaged over the about 25 arcsec beam of the 30 m telescope at 3 mm is (1.6 + or - 0.4) x 10 to the 13th/sq cm - 6 times that of H2CCC, the first member of this sequence of cumulene carbenes, also recently identified in TMC-1.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- February 1991
- DOI:
- 10.1086/185944
- Bibcode:
- 1991ApJ...368L..43C
- Keywords:
-
- Astronomical Spectroscopy;
- Carbenes;
- Interstellar Matter;
- Line Spectra;
- Molecular Structure;
- Radio Sources (Astronomy);
- Isomers;
- Rotational Spectra;
- Telescopes;
- Astrophysics;
- INTERSTELLAR: MOLECULES;
- LINE IDENTIFICATIONS;
- MOLECULAR PROCESSES;
- RADIO SOURCES: LINES;
- STARS: CIRCUMSTELLAR SHELLS