ALMA Observations of HCN and its Isotopologues on Titan
Edward M. Molter, Conor A. Nixon, Martin A. Cordiner, Joseph Serigano,, Patrick G. J. Irwin, Nicholas A. Teanby, Steven B. Charnley, Johan E., Lindberg

TL;DR
This study uses ALMA sub-millimeter spectra to detect and analyze HCN isotopologues on Titan, providing new isotopic ratio measurements that inform models of Titan's atmospheric chemistry and fractionation processes.
Contribution
First detection of H$^{13}$C$^{15}$N on Titan and precise isotopic ratios for HCN, enhancing understanding of Titan's atmospheric composition and fractionation.
Findings
Detected H$^{13}$C$^{15}$N isotopologue on Titan.
Measured D/H ratio in HCN, indicating deuterium enrichment.
Confirmed elevated $^{14}$N/$^{15}$N ratio in HCN compared to N$_2$.
Abstract
We present sub-millimeter spectra of HCN isotopologues on Titan, derived from publicly available ALMA flux calibration observations of Titan taken in early 2014. We report the detection of a new HCN isotopologue on Titan, HC, and confirm an earlier report of detection of DCN. We model high signal-to-noise observations of HCN, HCN, HCN, DCN, and HC to derive abundances and infer the following isotopic ratios: C/C = 89.8 2.8, N/N = 72.3 2.2, D/H = (2.5 0.2)10, and HCN/HC = 5800 270 (1 errors). The carbon and nitrogen ratios are consistent with and improve on the precision of previous results, confirming a factor of 2.3 elevation in N/N in HCN compared to N and a lack of fractionation in C/C from the protosolar value. This…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
