Detection and prebiotic chemistry of possible glycine precursor molecule methylenimine towards the hot molecular core G10.47+0.03

Abstract

Amino acids are essential for the synthesis of protein. Amino acids contain both amine (R$-$NH${}_2$) and carboxylic acid (R$-$COOH) functional groups, which help to understand the possible formation mechanism of life in the universe. Among the 20 types of amino acids, glycine (NH${}_2$CH${}_2$COOH) is known as the simplest non-essential amino acid. In the last 40 years, all surveys of NH${}_2$CH${}_2$COOH in the interstellar medium, especially in the star-formation regions, have failed at the millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths. We aimed to identify the possible precursors of NH${}_2$CH${}_2$COOH, because it is highly challenging to identify NH${}_2$CH${}_2$COOH in the interstellar medium. Many laboratory experiments have suggested that methylenimine (CH${}_2$NH) plays a key role as a possible precursor of NH${}_2$CH${}_2$COOH in the star-formation regions via the Strecker synthesis reaction. After spectral analysis using the local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) model, we successfully identified the rotational emission lines of CH${}_2$NH towards the hot molecular core G10.47+0.03 using the Atacama Compact Array (ACA). The estimated column density of CH${}_2$NH towards G10.47+0.03 is (3.40$\pm$0.2)$\times$10${}^{15}$ cm${}^{-2}$ with a rotational temperature of 218.70$\pm$20 K, which is estimated from the rotational diagram. The fractional abundance of CH${}_2$NH with respect to H${}_2$ towards G10.47+0.03 is 2.61$\times$10${}^{-8}$. We found that the derived abundance of CH${}_2$NH agree fairly well with the existing two-phase warm-up chemical modelling abundance value of CH${}_2$NH. We discuss the possible formation pathways of CH${}_2$NH within the context of hot molecular cores, and we find that CH${}_2$NH is likely mainly formed via neutral-neutral gas-phase reactions of CH${}_3$ and NH radicals towards G10.47+0.03.

Accepted for publication in International Journal of Astrobiology. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2402.16798

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• Organic Acid Chemistry in ISM: Detection of Formic Acid and its Prebiotic Chemistry in Hot Core G358.93$-$0.03 MM1