Detection of complex organic molecules in a prestellar core: a new challenge for astrochemical models^⋆,⋆⋆

UJF-Grenoble 1 / CNRS-INSU, Institut de Planétologie et d’Astrophysique de Grenoble (IPAG) UMR 5274, 38041 Grenoble, France
e-mail: abacmann@ujf-grenoble.fr

Received: 12 March 2012
Accepted: 29 March 2012

Abstract

Context. Complex organic molecules (COMs) have long been detected in the interstellar medium, especially in hot cores and in the hot corinos of low-mass protostars. Their formation routes however remain uncertain. Both warm gas-phase reactions and warm grain-surface reactions have been invoked to account for their presence in low-mass protostars. In this latter scheme, COMs result from radical-radical reactions on the grains as radicals become mobile when the nascent protostar warms up its surroundings and the resulting molecules are subsequently desorbed into the gas phase at higher temperatures.

Aims. Prestellar cores are the direct precursors of low-mass protostars and offer a unique opportunity to study the formation of COMs before the warm-up phase. Their very low temperatures (≤ 10 K) and the absence of any heating source or outflow exclude any efficient warm gas phase or warm dust chemistry, so that the presence of COMs in prestellar cores would have to originate from non-thermal chemical processes.

Methods. We used the IRAM 30 m telescope to look for four O-bearing COMs (acetaldehyde CH₃CHO, dimethyl ether CH₃OCH₃, methyl formate CH₃OCHO, and ketene CH₂CO) in the prestellar core L1689B.

Results. We report the unambiguous detection of all four molecules in the cold gas phase of L1689B. These detections support the role played by non-thermal (possibly photolytic) processes in COM formation and desorption, though the presence of dimethyl ether is so far unexplained by current grain formation scenarios. The data show univocally that COM synthesis has already started at the prestellar stage and suggests at least part of the COMs detected in hot corinos have a prestellar origin.