J. Cernicharo, M. Agúndez, R. I. Kaiser, C. Cabezas, B. Tercero, N. Marcelino, J. R. Pardo, and P. de Vicente
reported on the
Discovery of Benzyne, //o//-C₆H₄, in TMC-1 with the QUIJOTE Line Survey
Astron. Astrophys. 652, Art. No. L9 (2021).
The ortho isomer of benzyne, c-C₆H₄, was identified through nine b-type transitions with 2 ≤ J ≤ 7 and K_a ≤ 2 in the course of a molecular line survey of the prototypical cold dark molecular cloud TMC-1 carried out with the Yebes 40 m radio telescope between 31.0 and 50.3 GHz. Six of these lines appear to be unblended or only slightly blended. A value of T_rot ≈ 7 K was derived. The column density of ortho-benzyne is much lower than that of, e.g., cyclopentadiene and indene and similar to that of ethynylcylopropenylidene.

Contributor(s): H. S. P. Müller; 08, 2021