Tracing Prebiotic Molecules: Rotational Spectroscopy of Deuterated Glycolaldehyde and (Z)-1,2-Ethenediol.

Abstract

Glycolaldehyde, an important prebiotic molecule, along with its monodeuterated species and its higher energy tautomer, (Z)-1,2-ethenediol, has been detected in the interstellar medium. Although the elemental D/H ratio in the universe is only ∼1.6 × 10-5, the deuterium relative abundance in interstellar molecules might be by far larger than this. As such, it provides a remarkable and almost unique diagnostic tool. In particular, it might help elucidate the reaction mechanisms that lead to the formation of the so-called complex organic molecules. It is therefore crucial to extend the census of the interstellar deuterated molecules. To this aim, in this work, we present for the first time a spectroscopic investigation of the rotational spectra of the CHDOD-CHO bideuterated variant of glycolaldehyde and of mono- and bideuterated species of (Z)-1,2-ethenediol (CHOD═CHOD, CHOD═CHOH, and CHOH═CHOD rotamers). For each species, more than a hundred transitions have been assigned. Their analysis led to the accurate determination of all rotational constants as well as quartic and sextic centrifugal distortion terms, thus providing spectroscopic line catalogs suitable for supporting astronomical searches. In addition, the rotational constants of the bideuterated glycolaldehyde isotopologue studied in this work allowed us to improve the semiexperimental equilibrium structure determination for this molecule.