Speaker
Description
The C$_2$H$_4$O$_2$ triplet found in the interstellar medium (ISM) consists of
glycolaldehyde (CH$_2$OHCHO), acetic acid (CH$_3$COOH) and methyl formate
(HCOOCH$_3$ ). The forming mechanisms of their HCO-bearing components involve
both gas-phase and grain-surface processes whose relative roles are
fundamental questions in the fields of astrochemistry and astrobiology. Here, we
confirmed the detections of each species of C$_2$H$_4$O$_2$ toward Sgr B2(N) with the
more sensitive and larger bandwidth from ALMA Band 3 observations (A.
Belloche, 2012), providing us more transitions and more accurate continuum
subtraction. Based on these results, we derived the column density and imaged
the spatial distributions of the C$_2$H$_4$O$_2$ species. We reported the first high spatial
resolution submillimeter maps of CH$_2$OHCHO, CH$_3$COOH, and HCOOCH$_3$. The
difference in the morphology of the three isomers indicates that the acetic acid
might have a different formation mechanism from the others.
