Related papers: Exploring molecular complexity in the Galactic Cen…

The search for complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium (ISM) has revealed species of ever greater complexity. This search relies on the progress made in the laboratory to characterize their rotational spectra. Our understanding…

We used ALMA to perform a line survey of the high-mass star forming region Sgr B2(N), called ReMoCA. We modeled under the assumption of LTE the spectra obtained toward the sources embedded in the secondary hot core Sgr B2(N2). We compared…

Up to now, mostly relatively simple molecules have been detected in interstellar diffuse molecular clouds in our galaxy, but more complex species have been reported in the diffuse/translucent medium of a z = 0.89 spiral galaxy. We aim at…

The SgrB2 molecular cloud contains several sites forming high-mass stars. SgrB2(N) is one of its main centers of activity. It hosts several compact and UCHII regions, as well as two known hot molecular cores (SgrB2(N1) and SgrB2(N2)), where…

Over the past five decades, radio astronomy has shown that molecular complexity is a natural outcome of interstellar chemistry, in particular in star forming regions. However, the pathways that lead to the formation of complex molecules are…

Urea, NH2C(O)NH2, is a molecule of great importance in organic chemistry and biology. Two searches for urea in the interstellar medium were reported in the past, but neither were conclusive. We want to take advantage of the increased…

Deuteration is a powerful tracer of the history of the cold prestellar phase in star forming regions. Apart from methanol, little is known about deuterium fractionation of complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium, especially in…

We used the EMoCA survey data to search for isocyanides in Sgr B2(N2) and their corresponding cyanide analogs. We then used the coupled three-phase chemical kinetics code MAGICKAL to simulate their chemistry. Several new species, and over…

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the nearest laboratory for detailed studies on the formation and survival of complex organic molecules (COMs), including biologically important ones, in low-metallicity environments--typical for earlier…

The discovery of amino acids in meteorites and the detection of glycine in samples returned from a comet to Earth suggest that the interstellar chemistry is capable of producing such complex organic molecules. Our goal is to investigate the…

ALMA will be able to detect a broad spectrum of molecular lines in galaxies. Current aperture synthesis observations indicate that the molecular line emission from galaxies is remarkably variable, even on kpc scales. Imaging spectroscopy at…

The detection of a branched alkyl molecule in the high-mass star forming protocluster Sgr B2(N) permitted by the advent of ALMA revealed a new dimension of interstellar chemistry. Astrochemical simulations subsequently predicted that beyond…

Thanks to the advent of sensitive and broad bandwidth instrumentation, complex organic molecules (COMs) have been found in a wide variety of interstellar environments, not only in our Galaxy but also in external galaxies up to a redshift of…

The giant molecular cloud complex Sagittarius B2 (Sgr~B2) in the central molecular zone of our Galaxy hosts several high-mass star formation sites, with Sgr~B2(M) and Sgr~B2(N) being the main centers of activity. This analysis aims to…

Complex organic molecules (COMs) have been detected ubiquitously in protostellar systems. However, at shorter wavelengths (~0.8mm) it is more difficult to detect larger molecules than at longer wavelengths (~3mm) because of the increase of…

As the number of complex organic molecules (COMs) detected in the interstellar medium increases, it becomes important to place meaningful constraints on the formation pathways of these species. The molecular cloud SgrB2(N) is host to…

Molecular complexity builds up at each step of the Sun-like star formation process, starting from simple molecules and ending up in large polyatomic species. Complex organic molecules (COMs; such as methyl formate, HCOOCH$_3$, dymethyl…

In the central regions of active galaxies, dense molecular medium are exposed to various types of radiation and energy injections, such as UV, X-ray, cosmic ray, and shock dissipation. With the rapid progress of chemical models and…

Using mm-wavelength data from ALMA, the EMoCA spectral line survey revealed the presence of both the straight-chain and branched forms of propyl cyanide (C$_3$H$_7$CN) toward the Galactic Center star-forming source Sgr B2(N2). This was the…

Complex organic molecules (COM) are detected in many sources in the warm inner regions of envelopes surrounding deeply embedded protostars. Exactly how these COM form remains an open question. This study aims to constrain the formation of…