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J. Crovisier, D. Bockel\'ee-Morvan, P. Colom (Observatoire de Paris-Meudon), N. Biver (Institute for Astronomy, Univ. Hawaii), D. Despois (Observatoire de Bordeaux), D. Lis, D.J. Benford (CalTech), D. Mehringer (Univ. Illinois)
From radio spectroscopic observations of comets, more than 22 molecules, radicals and ions, plus several isotopic varieties, were detected (the majority of them being recently revealed in comets C/1996 B2 Hyakutake and C/1995 O1 Hale-Bopp).
In addition, many species were seached for unsuccessfully, some of them with stringent upper limits. We will present a review of these observations and an analysis of their results. These include: (i) limits on small molecules such as ketene (H2CCO) or methanimine (CH2NH); (ii) limits on the abundance ratios in families such as HC5N/HC3N, ethanol/methanol, acetic acid/formic acid; (iii) searches for precursors of key cometary species such as Na atom and HNC; (iv) marginal detection of acetaldehyde and unidentified lines; (v) limits on deuterated species and other isotopic varieties; (vi) constraints on more exotic species ranging from water dimer (H2O)2 to glycine.
These results give important constraints on the chemical composition of cometary ices, on the formation mechanisms of cometary material, and on the chemical processes which occur in the inner coma.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: crovisie@obspm.fr