The Missing Link of Sulfur Chemistry in TMC-1: The Detection of c-C3H2S from the GOTHAM Survey

TL;DR

This paper reports the first detection of cyclopropenethione (c-C3H2S) in space, completing the identification of all low-energy isomers of C3H2S in TMC-1, and discusses how their relative abundances follow the dipole principle.

Contribution

It provides the spectroscopic characterization of c-C3H2S and confirms its presence in space, supporting the dipole principle for isomer abundance predictions.

Findings

Detection of c-C3H2S in TMC-1 with specific column density.

The abundance ratios follow the relative dipole principle.

CH2CCO remains undetected in astronomical sources.

Abstract

We present the spectroscopic characterization of cyclopropenethione (c-C3H2S) in the laboratory and detect it in space using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) Observations of TMC-1: Hunting Aromatic Molecules (GOTHAM) survey. The detection of this molecule - the missing link in understanding the C3H2S isomeric family in TMC-1 - completes the detection of all 3 low-energy isomers of C3H2S as both CH2CCS and HCCCHS have been previously detected in this source. The total column density of this molecule (N_T of 5.72+2.65/-1.61x10^10 cm^-2 at an excitation temperature of 4.7+1.3/-1.1 K) is smaller than both CH2CCS and HCCCHS and follows nicely the relative dipole principle (RDP), a kinetic rule-of-thumb for predicting isomer abundances which suggests that, all other chemistry among a family of isomers being the same, the member with the smallest dipole should be the most abundant. The RDP now holds for the astronomical abundance ratios of both the S-bearing and O-bearing counterparts observed in TMC-1; however, CH2CCO continues to elude detection in any astronomical source.