Cyclopropenone (c-H2C3O): A New Interstellar Ring Molecule

The three-carbon keto ring cyclopropenone (c-H2C 3O) has been detected largely in absorption with the 100 m Green Bank Telescope (GBT) toward the star-forming region Sagittarius B2(N) by means of a number of rotational transitions between energy levels that have energies less than 10 K. Previous negative results from searches for interstellar c-H2C3O by other investigators attempting to detect rotational transitions that have energy levels ~10 K or greater indicate no significant hot core component. Thus, we conclude that only the low-energy levels of c-H2C3O are populated because the molecule state temperature is low, suggesting that c-H2C3O resides in a star-forming core halo region that has a widespread arcminute spatial scale. Toward Sagittarius B2(N), the GBT was also used to observe the previously reported, spatially ubiquitous, three-carbon ring cyclopropenylidene (c-C3H2 ), which has a divalent carbon that makes it highly reactive in the laboratory. The presence of both c-C3H2 and c-H2C3O toward Sagittarius B2(N) suggests that gas-phase oxygen addition may account for the synthesis of c-H 2C3O from c-C3H2. We also searched for but did not detect the three-carbon sugar glyceraldehyde (CH2OHCHOHCHO).

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