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Gauche Ethyl Alcohol: Laboratory Assignments and Interstellar Identification

1997; IOP Publishing; Volume: 480; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1086/303967

1538-4357

John C. Pearson, K. V. L. N. Sastry, Eric Herbst, Frank C. De Lucia,

Molecular Spectroscopy and Structure

Ethyl alcohol (ethanol) is known to possess a pair of closely spaced excited torsional substates (gauche+, gauche-) at an energy of approximately 57 K above the ground (trans) torsional substate. We report an extended analysis of some gauche- -gauche+ Q-branch (ΔJ = 0) transitions with a three-substate fixed frame axis method (FFAM) Hamiltonian. Our approach accounts for complex trans-gauche interactions for the first time. In addition, we are able to obtain intensities for perturbed rotational transitions, and to determine the trans to gauche+ separation to be 1185399.1 MHz. A complete ground state rotational-torsional partition function accounting for the previously neglected gauche substates is presented. Based on our analysis, a total of 14 U lines obtained towards Orion KL can now be assigned to gauche substates of ethanol. Analysis of these lines yields a rotational temperature of 223 K and a total (trans + gauche) column density of 7.0 × 1015 cm-2. The column density is in reasonable agreement with the recent value of 2-3 × 1015 cm-2 based on observations of trans-ethanol by Ohishi et al., although there is some disparity in the rotational temperatures. Eight additional U lines in the literature are assigned to transitions of gauche ethanol.