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A.J. Remijan, L.E. Snyder (Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois), S.-Y. Liu (Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology), Y.-J. Kuan (Department of Earth Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University; and Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica), D.M. Mehringer (National Center for Supercomputing Applications; Department of Astronomy, University of Illinois)
We have made the first detection of interstellar acetic acid (CH3COOH) toward the high mass star forming region W51. This is the first new source of interstellar acetic acid since its discovery by Mehringer et al. (1997) toward the high mass star forming region Sgr B2(N-LMH). In this poster, we report CH3COOH observations at two new frequencies toward Sgr B2(N-LMH) with the Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) Millimeter Array and at ten frequencies toward W51 with the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association (BIMA) Array. Toward Sgr B2, the agreement in positions, intensities and velocities between the two lines from the previous study and the two lines from our new observations strongly indicate all four CH3COOH lines are coming from a common source. We find the fractional abundance of CH3COOH relative to H2 is (0.8-6)x10-10 and (3-6)x10-2 relative to its isomer methyl formate (HCOOCH3). Toward W51, the fractional abundance of CH3COOH relative to H2 is 1.7x10-9 and (1-6)x10-2 relative to HCOOCH3. Furthermore, we find the distribution of CH3COOH is coincident with HCOOCH3, thus suggesting a similar formation mechanism. Y.-J. K. acknowledges support from grants NSC 88-2112-M-003-013 and NSC 89-2112-M-003-004. We acknowledge support from the Laboratory of Astronomical Imaging at the University of Illinois, and NSF AST 99-81363. The OVRO Millimeter Array is supported by NSF grant AST 99-81546.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: aremijan@astro.uiuc.edu
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.