Observational Results of a Multi-Telescope Campaign to Detect Interstellar Urea [(NH2)2CO]

Published

March 10, 2014

Author(s)

Francis J. Lovas, Anthony J. Remijan, Lewis E. Snyder, Brett A. McGuire, Hsin-Lun Kuo, Leslie W. Looney, Douglas N. Friedel, G. Y. Golbiatnikov, Vadim V. Ilyushin, E A. Alekseev, S F. Dyubko, Benjamin J. McCall, Jan M. Hollis

Abstract

In this paper, we present observational evidence for gas phase urea observed towards the Sgr B2(N-LMH) region. We show data covering urea transitions from 100 GHz to 250 GHz from five different observational facilities: BIMA, CARMA, the NRAO 12 m telescope, the IRAM 30 m telescope, and SEST. The results show that the features ascribed to urea can be reproduced across the entire observed bandwidth and all facilities by best fit column density, temperature, and source size parameters which vary by less than a factor of 2 between observations merely by adjusting for telescope-specific parameters. Interferometric observations show that the emission arising from these transitions is cospatial and compact, consistent with the derived source sizes and emission from a single species. We present observational spectra, laboratory data, and models, and discuss our results in the context of a molecular detection of urea.

Citation

Astrophysical Journal

Volume

783

Issue

2

Pub Type

Journals

Download Paper

https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/783/2/77

Keywords

interstellar medium, interstellar molecules, microwave spectrum, radio astronomy, rotational spectrum, urea

Citation

Lovas, F. , Remijan, A. , Snyder, L. , McGuire, B. , Kuo, H. , Looney, L. , Friedel, D. , Golbiatnikov, G. , V., V. , Alekseev, E. , Dyubko, S. , McCall, B. and Hollis, J. (2014), Observational Results of a Multi-Telescope Campaign to Detect Interstellar Urea [(NH2)2CO], Astrophysical Journal, [online], https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/783/2/77 (Accessed October 16, 2025)