LET EER ips: /doiorg/10.1038/541586-019-1090-x Astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion HeHt Rolf Gusten!*, Helmut Wiesemeyer', David Neufeld?, Karl M. Menten! Urs U. Graf, Karl Jacobs?, Bernd Klein! Christophe Risacher' & Jurgen Seutzki? During the dawn of chemistry*2, when the temperature ofthe young, Universe had fallen below some 4,000 kelvin, the ions of the light cements produced in Big Bang nucleosynthesis recombined in reverse order oftheir ionization potential. With their higher ionization potentials, the helium ions He®* and He” were the first to combine With free electrons, forming thefirst neutral atoms; the recombination. ‘ofhydrogen followed. In this metal-free and low-density environment, neutral helium atoms formed the Universes first molecular bond in the helium hydside fon Hell through r ation with, protons. As recombination progressed, the destruction of HeH™ ‘created a path tothe formation of molecular hydrogen. Despite its “unquestioned importance inthe evolution ofthe early Universe, the Helton has ofar cluded unequivocal detec erstellarspace. Inthe laboratory theion was discovered” as long ago a 1925, but only inthe te 1970s asthe post that Het” might exist in eal astrophysical plasmas discussed”. In particular the con flnclacy nce were shown o be sulale for producing potentially detectable column densities of HeH". Here we report observations, based on advances in terahertz spectroscopy" and a high-altitude observatory", ofthe rotational ground-state transition of Hell” sta ‘wavelength of 149.1 micrometres in the planetary nebula NGC 7027. ‘Thisconfirmation of the existence of Hel in nearby interstellar space constrains our understanding ofthe chemical networks that control theformation ofthis moleculaion, in particular the rates of radiative association and dissociative recombination, “The planetary nebula NGC 7027 seems « natural candidate for a search for He the nebula is very young (witha kinematic age of ‘only 600 years)", and its shell of released stellar material is still rather compact and dense. The central star is one of the hottest known (with aneflective temperature, Te ofsome 190,00 K} ands very luminous (with luminosity of 1.0 x 10" Lo, where Lo isthe luminosity of the Sun)", Under these conditions the Strmgren spheres that are created by the hard intense radiation field ofthe nebula central hot white dwarf are not yet fully developed, and the radiation field drives ioniza tion fronts into the molecular envelop. The He” Strdmgren sphere will extend slighty beyond the H® zane, and itis inthis thin overap layer that Heit will be produced. Detailed calculations” led to predictions for the intensities ofthe v = 1-0 R(0) and PQ) rotational-vibrational transitions inthe near-infrared; however, these predictions have not ‘been confirmed, despite deep searches'™#®, Observations" with the Infrared Space Observatory (IS0)’s Long Wavelength Spectrometer ofthe pure rotational = 1-0 ground-state transition a 149.137 um. (oshere Ji total angular momentum) were impaired by the limited resolving power of the spectrometer (AA = 0.6 1m), which did not allow the Hel” transition tobe separated from the nearby A-doublet ‘ofthe methylidyne radical (CH) at 149.09 ym and 149.39 um, Very debatable tentative detections of Hel” have been reported in the envelope ofthe supernove SN 19874" and in high-redshift qua sar, butall are unconfirmed and are suggested tobe considered as upper limit. This ack of direct evidence ofthe very existence ofthe ‘molecule ha called into question our understanding of the underlying Radoncvorome, Sonn, armen Th Joie Hepler Unity Sls, WO, UBR Oliver Ricken’, reaction networks2"in local plasmas, and might ultimately invalidate present models ofthe early Universe ‘The deployment ofthe German Receiver for Astronomy at Terahertz Frequencies (GREAT)” heterodyne spectrometer on board the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has now ‘opened up new opportunities. Although the Het" J=1-0:ransition at 149,137 um (2010183873 GHz ret. cannot be observed from ground: based observatories, skies become transparent during high-altitude flights with SOFIA. The latest advancesin terahertz technologies have enabled the operation ofthe high-resolution spectrometer upGREAT=at frequenciesabove2 THe, allowing the Hel" J = l-Dlineto be targeted The resolving power of thisheterodyne instrument, = 10° permits the Hel" J = 1-Oline tobe distinguished unambiguously from othe, ‘nearby spectral features sch asthe CH A-doublet mentioned previously. Dring thre fights in May 2016, the telescope was pointed owacds NGC-7027 (the total on-target integration time was 71 min). Weak emission in the HelI" J = 1-0 ine was clearly detected (Fig. 1), as was emission from the nearby CH doublet. Notably, the ines are well sepa- rated in frequency (Extended Data Fig 1) The velocity profile ofthe Hei" line matches nicely that of the excited CO J = 11-10 transition, which was observed in parallel. The velocity integrated line brightness temperate, Tay dd¥= 35:07 K kms, conesponks oa line Mx of 1.63 > 10-Sexgs “cm Because the 143” half power beam respons of UpGREAT includes most of the NGC 7027 ionized gas sphere this result willbe close othe total HeH* ux emit inthe J= 1-Dlin. The axis somewhat higher han the upper limit (1.26 x 10-" ergs"!em*) assigned toany residual HeH* contribution in the ISO observations, in theattempt® ‘oseparate the line from ts blend with the CH doublet (ee Extended Data “Table forthe fuses observed with upGREAT during this experimen) ‘Wehave modelled the Hell" abundance across NGC 7027. We approx mated the nebula asa constant- pressure, spherically symmetric shell and adjusted the pressure to obtain aStrémgren sphere of angular radius ‘46”—the geometric mean decuced from the 1 GHz.radio continuum image". We adopted a stellar luminosity of 1.0 < 10'Lo,a tla effective temperature of 19% 10° (ref, ).a source distance of 80 parses", and a Heabundance of 0.12 relative to H, Usngthe CLOUDY phetoion ization code", we calculated profiles of temperature and densty (for H, He" and electrons) asa funetion of position across the shell (Fig.2).The ‘mean clectron density within the ionized shellis4.9 > 10 em and that inthe H/He" overlap layers roughly 2» 10" em We then computed the equilibrium abundance of HeH~, including the thre reactions identified as being important in the layers in which Hel is most abundant” He + H—Hell* + hv a Hell! 46-1 He+H Q Heli! + HH} +He 8 Pryaleses et Unvaretta aa, Cea Gorman “Uni ot Anoled Sura Bean Are Seg St ign Gomory. st se Radeesrorome Mimeiqe Sart Mr eres Face eel utee@rpi omnenvese