J. Cernicharo, S. Bailleux, E. Alekseev, A. Fuente, E. Roueff, M. Gerin, B. Tercero, S. P. Treviño-Morales, N. Marcelino, R. Bachiller, and B. Lefloch,
reported on the
Tentative Detection of the Nitrosylium Ion in Space
Astrophys. J. 795, Art. No. 40 (2014).
The J = 2 – 1 transition of NO⁺ near 238.4 GHz was idenitified in a line survey of the cold core Barnard 1-b carried out with the IRAM 30 m radio telescope. The two strongest overlapping HFS components were clearly seen in emission. There is also emission at the position of two weaker overlapping HFS components, though noise makes this feature appear stronger than expected. An expected third feature is in the noise. The reported abundance ratios, about similar among NO⁺ and HNO, and NO being about 500 times more abundant than NO⁺, are quite reasonable, though agreement with model calculations were not entirely satisfactory for HNO.

Contributor(s): H. S. P. Müller; 10, 2014