A high resolution line survey of IRC+10216 with Herschel. First results:
  Detection of warm silicon dicarbide SiC2
  We present the first results of a high-spectral-resolution survey of the
carbon-rich evolved star IRC+10216 that was carried out with the HIFI
spectrometer onboard Herschel. This survey covers all HIFI bands, with a
spectral range from 488 to 1901GHz. In this letter we focus on the band-1b
spectrum, in a spectral range 554.5-636.5GHz, where we identified 130 spectral
features with intensities above 0.03 K and a signal-to-noise ratio >5. Detected
lines arise from HCN, SiO, SiS, CS, CO, metal-bearing species and,
surprisingly, silicon dicarbide (SiC2). We identified 55 SiC2 transitions
involving energy levels between 300 and 900 K. By analysing these rotational
lines, we conclude that SiC2 is produced in the inner dust formation zone, with
an abundance of ~2x10^-7 relative to molecular hydrogen. These SiC2 lines have
been observed for the first time in space and have been used to derive an SiC2
rotational temperature of ~204 K and a source-averaged column density of
~6.4x10^15 cm^-2. Furthermore, the high quality of the HIFI data set was used
to improve the spectroscopic rotational constants of SiC2.
