Millimeter- and submillimeter-wave spectroscopy of thioformamide and interstellar search toward Sgr B2(N)^⋆

¹ Université de Lille, Faculté des Sciences et Technologies, Département Physique, Laboratoire de Physique des Lasers, Atomes et Molécules, UMR CNRS 8523, 59655 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex, France
e-mail: roman.motiyenko@univ-lille.fr
² Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, 53121 Bonn, Germany
³ Departments of Chemistry and Astronomy, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
⁴ I. Physikalisches Institut, Universität zu Köln, Zülpicher Str. 77, 50937 Köln, Germany
⁵ Univ Rennes, Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Chimie de Rennes, CNRS, ISCR – UMR 6226, 35000 Rennes, France

Received: 23 June 2020
Accepted: 17 July 2020

Abstract

Context. Thioformamide NH₂CHS is a sulfur-bearing analog of formamide NH₂CHO. The latter was detected in the interstellar medium back in the 1970s. Most of the sulfur-containing molecules detected in the interstellar medium are analogs of corresponding oxygen-containing compounds. Therefore, thioformamide is an interesting candidate for a search in the interstellar medium.

Aims. A previous study of the rotational spectrum of thioformamide was limited to frequencies below 70 GHz and to transitions with J ≤ 3. The aim of this study is to provide accurate spectroscopic parameters and rotational transition frequencies for thioformamide to enable astronomical searches for this molecule using radio telescope arrays at millimeter wavelengths.

Methods. The rotational spectrum of thioformamide was measured and analyzed in the frequency range 150−660 GHz using the Lille spectrometer. We searched for thioformamide toward the high-mass star-forming region Sagittarius (Sgr) B2(N) using the ReMoCA spectral line survey carried out with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array.

Results. Accurate rigid rotor and centrifugal distortion constants were obtained from the analysis of the ground state of parent, ³⁴S, ¹³C, and ¹⁵N singly substituted isotopic species of thioformamide. In addition, for the parent isotopolog, the lowest two excited vibrational states, v₁₂ = 1 and v₉ = 1, were analyzed using a model that takes Coriolis coupling into account. Thioformamide was not detected toward the hot cores Sgr B2(N1S) and Sgr B2(N2). The sensitive upper limits indicate that thioformamide is nearly three orders of magnitude at least less abundant than formamide. This is markedly different from methanethiol, which is only about two orders of magnitude less abundant than methanol in both sources.

Conclusions. The different behavior shown by methanethiol versus thioformamide may be caused by the preferential formation of the latter (on grains) at late times and low temperatures, when CS abundances are depressed. This reduces the thioformamide-to-formamide ratio, because the HCS radical is not as readily available under these conditions.