Interstellar molecular abundances toward omicron Persei

Abstract

Extensive scanning of the B1 III star omicron Per has been done with the Copernicus telescope-spectrometer in an effort to determine column densities or meaningful upper limits for several molecules expected to be relatively abundant in H I regions of moderate density. The combination of radio H II, OH, and CO emission-line data with the optical absorption measurements indicates that omicron Per is embedded in the near edge of a dense molecular cloud and that the material seen in front of the star must be close to it. Molecules detected in ultraviolet absorption are H2, HD, CO, and possibly OH. The CO rotational temperature is between 2.2 and 3.8 K. The observed column densities and upper limits from Copernicus and ground-based data are compared with recent models for molecular formation in diffuse clouds.