Millimeter and Submillimeter Spectroscopy of the Deuterated Molecular Ion SD+

Abstract

Seven rotational and fine-structure transitions of the deuterated molecular ion SD ^+ in the X ^3 Σ ^− ground electronic state have been measured in the 271–863 GHz region in the laboratory. This ion has been produced by direct-current glow discharge using a mixture of D _2 S and argon in a free space cell in a temperature range of −140°C to −160°C. The rotational, centrifugal distortion, spin–spin interaction, and hyperfine constants have been determined; the standard deviation of the residuals in the fitting is 109 kHz. The set of obtained spectroscopic parameters provides a list of accurate submillimeter rest frequencies of SD ^+ for astronomical detection. We have investigated lines of SD ^+ toward the quasar PKS 1830-211 using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array archive, as the z = 0.89 molecular absorber exists in front of this quasar. A data set covering the 297 GHz region includes the N _J = 2 _3 –1 _2 transition at 561 GHz due to redshift, providing an upper limit of the column density N _tot = 3 × 10 ^12 cm ^−2 for SD ^+ .

Keywords

• Laboratory astrophysics
• Molecular physics
• Submillimeter astronomy
• Rotational spectroscopy
• Molecular clouds