SUBMILLIMETER WAVE SPECTROSCOPY AND ISM SEARCH FOR A CHIRAL MOLECULE : 2-AMINOPROPANENITRILE

Author Institution: Laboratoire PhLAM, CNRS UMR 8523, Universite de Lille 1, 59655 Villeneuve d'Ascq Cedex, France.; Centre for Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (CTCC), University of Oslo, P.\ O.\ Box 1033, Blindern, NO-0315 Oslo, Norway; Sciences Chimiques de Rennes-Ecole Nationale Superieure de Chimie de Rennes-CNRS, 35700 Rennes, France; Max-Planck-Institut fur Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hugel 69, D-53121 Bonn, GermanyThe detection of chiral compounds in the interstellar medium is a great challenge andcould tell us the connection between the chemistry of the ISM and the origin of life on the primitive Earth. Chiral C-3 sugar, $\alpha$-aminonitriles and cyanohydrins or the corresponding chloro-derivatives are intuitively the simplest chiral candidates consistent with the nature of the heteroatoms observed in the ISM. The aminoacetonitrile being observed in Sgr~B2(N)} {\textbf{482}}, 179-196 (2008)} but not the simplest cyanohydrins and chloacetonitrile, our study was devoted to the 2-aminopropanenitrile, the methyl derivative of aminoacetonitrile and the precursor of alanine (an amino acid) by hydrolysis. The measurements were made in Oslo and in Lille from 7 to 660 GHz. More than 2000 lines were assigned. The search in Sgr~B2(N) has been unsuccessful so far. The upper limit currently derived on the column density is comparable to the column density of aminoacetonitrile. {\textit {This~work~is~supported~by~the~french Programme National de Physique Chimie du Milieu Interstellaire}