Searching for methylamine in Orion-KL using ALMA archival data

Methylamine (CH₃NH₂) is the simplest amine and thought to be a potential interstellar precursor to the amino acid glycine (NH₂CH₂COOH). It is confirmed by the experimental work and in terms of exploration in the Solar system, CH₃NH₂ has been detected in two comets. However, in molecular clouds, a robust detection of CH₃NH₂ has been reported only for Sgr B2(N) so far, while a variety of complex organic molecules have been detected by radio observations in many star-forming regions. To search for CH₃NH₂, we used the ALMA Cycle 2 archival data toward Orion Kleinmann-Low nebula (Orion-KL) at Band 6 and found 5 candidate emission at the hot core region. By using the rotation diagram method, we evaluated its tentative column density and rotational temperature to be 4.9×10 cm^-2 and 102 K, respectively.