Discovery of the first Ca-bearing molecule in space: CaNC

J. Cernicharo, L. Velilla-Prieto, M. Agúndez, J. R. Pardo, J. P. Fonfría, G. Quintana-Lacaci, C. Cabezas, C. Bermúdez, M. Guélin

(Submitted on 21 Jun 2019)

We report on the detection of calcium isocyanide, CaNC, in the carbon-rich evolved star IRC+10216. We derived a column density for this species of (2.0±0.5)×1011 cm−2. Based on the observed line profiles and the modelling of its emission through the envelope, the molecule has to be produced in the intermediate and outer layers of the circumstellar envelope where other metal-isocyanides have previously been found in this source. The abundance ratio of CaNC relative to MgNC and FeCN is ≃1/60 and ≃1, respectively. We searched for the species CaF, CaCl, CaC, CaCCH, and CaCH3 for which accurate frequency predictions are available. Only upper limits have been obtained for these molecules.

Comments: 5 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in A&A

Subjects: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)

Cite as: arXiv:1906.09352 [astro-ph.SR] (or arXiv:1906.09352v1 [astro-ph.SR] for this version)

Submission history

From: Jose Pablo Fonfria  

[v1] Fri, 21 Jun 2019 23:30:11 UTC (125 KB)

https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.09352

Astrobiology, Astrochemistry