During the next decade a tremendous advance will take place in instrumentation for spectroscopy of the interstellar medium. Major new facilities (ALMA, SOFIA, APEX, LMT, Herschel and others) will be constructed and commissioned, so that the science opportu
Phillips,Vastel:Futuremmandsubmminstrumentation
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Figure6.WatertransitionsavailabletoHIFI.Bands1-5coversthefrequencyrange472-1280Gz;Band6covers1400-1904GHz;Gap5-6isthefrequencyrangebetweenBand5andBand6,whichmaynotbecovered.ground”speciesarelight,fastrotators,typi edbythedi-atomichydrides.Someofthese,e.g.NaH,CaH,MgH,...havebeensearchedforinJ=0→1transitionsusingatmosphericwindowsforground-basedtelescopes,withnegativeresults,butcanbesearchedfornow,within-creasedsensitivity,intwoways.The rstmethod(canbecarriedoutfromthegroundinfavorablecases)makesuseofcoldcloudsonthelineofsighttopowerfulcontinuumsources,suchasSgrB2.There,inthecolddarkclouds,themoleculeswillbeinthegroundstateandwouldbede-tectedinabsorption.ThismethodavoidstheconfusioninthespectraofGMCs,sincethelineforestislargelymadeupofhighlyexcitedmolecularlines,which,ofcourse,isnotthecaseforthehydridesincoldclouds.Agoodex-ampleisseenintheSWASdetectionoftheground-stateH2OlineinSgrB2(Figure4).Thesecondmethoddoessu erfromGMClineconfusion,butmakesuseofthenewhighfrequencycapabilitiesforHIFIandSOFIA,wherethehighJlinesofthevarioushydrideswillhavemuchhigherlinestrengthsthan1→0;hopefullythiswillover-cometheline-foreste ectinthehightemperatureand
highdensitysources.
Generally,above1THzthealmostzeroatmospherictrans-missionhaspreventedstudiessofar,butseveralwindowsoflimitedsizeandstrengthhavebeenrecentlydetectedonhighsites.SpaceplatformswillallowstudiesofHD(1→0)at2.67THz,HeH+(1→0)at2.01THz,N+at1.46and2.46THz,HFat1.23THz,FeHat1.41THz,OHat1.83THz,OH+at2.46THz,etc...SomespecieshavebeendetectedbyISO,e.g.CH+inthehighJtran-sitions(Cernicharoetal.1997),HF(Neufeldetal.1997)andHD(Wrightetal.1999,Cauxetal.2002).HIFIwillbeagreatimprovementcomparedtowhatusedtobeavailableonISO.
4.Deuterium
Oneofthemostimportantaspectsofmolecularspec-troscopyoftheinterstellarmediumisthestudyoftheabundanceofdeuterium.Thenewfacilitieswillprovideamuchwiderrangeoffrequenciesandsensitivities,sothatthedeuteriumstudiescanbeextendedtonewspeciesandnewobjects.Thefundamentalaspectofdeuterium