1. A Systematic TMRT Observational Study of Galactic 12C/13C Ratios from Formaldehyde.
- Author
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Y. T. Yan, J. S. Zhang, C. Henkel, T. Mufakharov, L. W. Jia, X. D. Tang, Y. J. Wu, J. Li, Z. A. Zeng, Y. X. Wang, Y. Q. Li, J. Huang, and J. M. Jian
- Subjects
HELIUM isotopes ,FORMALDEHYDE ,RADIO telescopes ,MOLECULAR clouds ,SPECTRAL lines ,SCIENTIFIC observation ,DEUTERIUM - Abstract
We present observations of the C-band 1
10 –111 (4.8 GHz) and Ku-band 211 –212 (14.5 GHz) K-doublet lines of H2 CO and the C-band 110 –111 (4.6 GHz) line of H2 13 CO toward a large sample of Galactic molecular clouds, through the Shanghai Tianma 65 m radio telescope (TMRT). Our sample with 112 sources includes strong H2 CO sources from the TMRT molecular line survey at C-band and other known H2 CO sources. All three lines are detected toward 38 objects (43 radial velocity components) yielding a detection rate of 34%. Complementary observations of their continuum emission at both C- and Ku-bands were performed. Combining spectral line parameters and continuum data, we calculate the column densities, the optical depths and the isotope ratio H2 12 CO/H2 13 CO for each source. To evaluate photon trapping caused by sometimes significant opacities in the main isotopologue’s rotational mm-wave lines connecting our measured K-doublets, and to obtain12 C/13 C abundance ratios, we used the RADEX non-LTE model accounting for radiative transfer effects. This implied the use of the new collision rates from Wiesenfeld & Faure. Also implementing distance values from trigonometric parallax measurements for our sources, we obtain a linear fit of12 C/13 C = (5.08 ± 1.10)DGC + (11.86 ± 6.60), with a correlation coefficient of 0.58. DGC refers to Galactocentric distances. Our12 C/13 C ratios agree very well with the ones deduced from CN and C18 O but are lower than those previously reported on the basis of H2 CO, tending to suggest that the bulk of the H2 CO in our sources was formed on dust grain mantles and not in the gas phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2019
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