The Census of Complex Organic Molecules in the Solar-type Protostar IRAS16293-2422
Résumé
Complex organic molecules (COMs) are considered to be crucial molecules, since they are connected with organic chemistry, at the basis of terrestrial life. More pragmatically, they are molecules which in principle are difficult to synthesize in harsh interstellar environments and, therefore, are a crucial test for astrochemical models. Current models assume that several COMs are synthesized on lukewarm grain surfaces (gsim30-40 K) and released in the gas phase at dust temperatures of gsim100 K. However, recent detections of COMs in lsim20 K gas demonstrate that we still need important pieces to complete the puzzle of COMs formation. Here, we present a complete census of the oxygen- and nitrogen-bearing COMs, previously detected in different Interstellar Medium (ISM) regions, toward the solar-type protostar IRAS16293-2422. The census was obtained from the millimeter-submillimeter unbiased spectral survey TIMASSS. Of the 29 COMs searched for, 6 were detected: methyl cyanide, ketene, acetaldehyde, formamide, dimethyl ether, and methyl formate. Multifrequency analysis of the last five COMs provides clear evidence that they are present in the cold (lsim30 K) envelope of IRAS16293-2422, with abundances of 0.03-2 × 10-10. Our data do not allow us to support the hypothesis that the COMs abundance increases with increasing dust temperature in the cold envelope, as expected if COMs were predominately formed on lukewarm grain surfaces. Finally, when also considering other ISM sources, we find a strong correlation over five orders of magnitude between methyl formate and dimethyl ether, and methyl formate and formamide abundances, which may point to a link between these two couples of species in cold and warm gas.