Rotational spectroscopy of the HCCO and DCCO radicals in the millimeter
  and submillimeter range
  The ketenyl radical, HCCO, has recently been detected in the ISM for the
first time. Further astronomical detections of HCCO will help us understand its
gas-grain chemistry, and subsequently revise the oxygen-bearing chemistry
towards dark clouds. Moreover, its deuterated counterpart, DCCO, has never been
observed in the ISM. HCCO and DCCO still lack a broad spectroscopic
investigation, although they exhibit a significant astrophysical relevance. In
this work we aim to measure the pure rotational spectra of the ground state of
HCCO and DCCO in the millimeter and submillimeter region, considerably
extending the frequency range covered by previous studies. The spectral
acquisition was performed using a frequency-modulation absorption spectrometer
between 170 and 650 GHz. The radicals were produced in a low-density plasma
generated from a select mixture of gaseous precursors. For each isotopologue we
were able to detect and assign more than 100 rotational lines. The new lines
have significantly enhanced the previous data set allowing the determination of
highly precise rotational and centrifugal distortion parameters. In our
analysis we have taken into account the interaction between the ground
electronic state and a low-lying excited state (Renner-Teller pair) which
enables the prediction and assignment of rotational transitions with $K_a$ up
to 4. The present set of spectroscopic parameters provides highly accurate,
millimeter and submillimeter rest-frequencies of HCCO and DCCO for future
astronomical observations. We also show that towards the pre-stellar core
L1544, ketenyl peaks in the region where $c$-$\mathrm{C_3H_2}$ peaks,
suggesting that HCCO follows a predominant hydrocarbon chemistry, as already
proposed by recent gas-grain chemical models.
