Submillimeter water and ammonia absorption by the peculiar z~0.89 interstellar medium in the gravitational lens of the PKS 1830-211 system

Abstract

Using the Atacama Pathfinder Experiment (APEX) telescope we have detected the rotational ground-state transitions of ortho-ammonia and ortho-water toward the redshift ~0.89 absorbing galaxy in the PKS 1830-211 gravitational lens system. We discuss our observations in the context of recent space-borne data obtained for these lines with the SWAS and Odin satellites toward Galactic sources. We find commonalities, but also significant differences between the interstellar media in a galaxy at intermediate redshift and in the Milky Way. Future high-quality observations of the ground-state ammonia transition in PKS 1830-211, together with inversion line data, will lead to strong constraints on the variation of the proton to electron mass ratio over the past 7.2 Gyr.

7 pages incl. 2 figures, A&A (in press)

References in corpus (6)

• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• Strong Limit on a Variable Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio from Molecules in the Distant Universe
• Enhanced sensitivity to time-variation of m_p/m_e in the inversion spectrum of ammonia
• Probing isotopic ratios at z = 0.89: molecular line absorption in front of the quasar PKS 1830-211
• SiO and CH3CCH abundances and dust emission in high-mass star-forming cores
• The detection of the (J,K)=(18,18) line of NH3

Cited by in corpus (6)

• An ALMA Early Science survey of molecular absorption lines toward PKS1830-211 -- Analysis of the absorption profiles
• Accurate Prediction of the Ammonia Probes of a Variable Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio
• The inhomogeneous ISM toward PKS1830-211 SW - A detailed view on molecular gas at a look-back time of 7.5 Gyr
• Discovery of CO absorption at z=0.05 in G0248+430
• Ammonia in the interstellar medium of a starbursting disc at z=2.6
• Constraints on the Variation of the QCD Interaction Scale ${\Lambda }_{\text{QCD}}$