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Astron. Astrophys. 335, 1070-1076 (1998)

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5. Conclusions

We have searched for several lines of the water dimer, (H2O)2, toward Galactic hot cores and for one line toward one Galactic dark cloud and toward comet Hale-Bopp. Our main conclusions are:

  • No emission of water dimer lines was detected. This leads to upper limits of the (H2O)2/H2O abundance of typically 10-4 and in the case of Orion of [FORMULA]. Together with the limits for the CO-H2 given by Allen et al. (1997) these are the most stringent limits given for van der Waals complexes in the ISM.

  • Our nondetection of the water dimer toward comet Hale-Bopp limits the production rate to [FORMULA] at perihelion, and the (H2O)2/H2O abundance to [FORMULA]. We suggest to look for serendipitous detections of (H2O)2 in archived observations of Hale-Bopp.

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© European Southern Observatory (ESO) 1998

Online publication: June 26, 1998
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