Discovery of interstellar ketenyl (HCCO), a surprisingly abundant radical

TL;DR

This study reports the first detection of the ketenyl radical (HCCO) in space within dark clouds, revealing its unexpected abundance and challenging existing chemical models of cold dark cloud chemistry.

Contribution

First identification of interstellar HCCO, along with related molecules, and analysis of their abundances, highlighting gaps in current chemical models of dark clouds.

Findings

HCCO detected with column density ~5e11 cm-2 in Lupus-1A and L483.

HCCO is about 10 times less abundant than ketene in these sources.

Existing models cannot fully explain the observed abundances of HCCO and propylene.

Abstract

We have conducted radioastronomical observations of 9 dark clouds with the IRAM 30m telescope. We present the first identification in space of the ketenyl radical (HCCO) toward the starless core Lupus-1A and the molecular cloud L483, and the detection of the related molecules ketene (H2CCO) and acetaldehyde (CH3CHO) in these two sources and 3 additional dark clouds. We also report the detection of the formyl radical (HCO) in the 9 targeted sources and of propylene (CH2CHCH3) in 4 of the observed sources, which extends significantly the number of dark clouds where these molecules are known to be present. We derive a beam-averaged column density of HCCO of 5e11 cm-2 in both Lupus-1A and L483, which means that the ketenyl radical is just 10 times less abundant than ketene in these sources. The non-negligible abundance of HCCO found implies that there must be a powerful formation mechanism able to counterbalance the efficient destruction of this radical through reactions with neutral atoms. The column densities derived for HCO, (0.5-2.7)e12 cm-2, and CH2CHCH3, (1.9-4-2)e13 cm-2, are remarkably uniform across the sources where these species are detected, confirming their ubiquity in dark clouds. Gas phase chemical models of cold dark clouds can reproduce the observed abundances of HCO, but cannot explain the presence of HCCO in Lupus-1A and L483 and the high abundances derived for propylene. The chemistry of cold dark clouds needs to be revised in the light of these new observational results.