The ALMA-PILS survey: Isotopic composition of oxygen-containing complex organic molecules toward IRAS 16293-2422B

TL;DR

This study uses ALMA data to analyze the isotopic composition of oxygen-containing complex organic molecules around a protostar, revealing insights into their formation and thermal history.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic survey of deuterated and 13C isotopologues of complex organic molecules in a Solar System-scale protostellar environment.

Findings

Complex molecules show distinct D/H ratios correlating with their formation times.

No significant deuteration differences among functional groups within species.

Variations in excitation temperatures reflect binding energies and sublimation processes.

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic survey of the deuterated and 13C isotopologues of a variety of oxygen-bearing complex organic molecules on Solar System scales toward the protostar IRAS 16293-2422B. We use the data from an unbiased molecular line survey between 329 and 363 GHz from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The observations probe scales of 60 AU where most of the organic molecules have sublimated off dust grains and are present in the gas-phase. The complex organic molecules can be divided into two groups with one group, the simpler species, showing a D/H ratio of approximately 2% and the other, the more complex species, D/H ratios of 4-8%. This division may reflect the formation time of each species in the ices before or during warm-up/infall of material through the protostellar envelope. No significant differences are seen in the deuteration of different functional groups for individual species, possibly a result of the short time-scale for infall through the innermost warm regions where exchange reactions between different species may be taking place. The species show differences in excitation temperatures between 125 K and 300 K. This likely reflects the binding energies/sublimation temperatures of the individual species, in good agreement to what has previously been found for high-mass sources. For dimethyl ether, the 12C/13C ratio is found to be lower by up to a factor of 2 compared to typical ISM values similar to what has previously been inferred for glycolaldehyde. The results point to the importance of ice surface chemistry for the formation of these complex organic molecules at different stages in the evolution of embedded protostars and demonstrate the use of accurate isotope measurements for understanding the history of individual species.