Cyano-Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Interstellar Candidates: Laboratory Identification, Equilibrium Structure and Astronomical Search of Cyanobiphenylene.

The interplay between laboratory rotational spectroscopy and radio astronomical observations provides the most effective procedure for identifying molecules in the interstellar medium (ISM). Following the recent interstellar detections of several Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) and cyano derivatives in the dense molecular cloud TMC-1, it is reasonable to consider searching for other cyano-PAHs in this astronomical source. We present a rotational spectroscopy investigation of the two cyano derivatives of the PAH biphenylene, a plausible reaction product of interstellar benzyne. The rotational spectrum provided molecular parameters for the parent species and 14 monosubstituted isotopologues for each isomer. An accurate equilibrium structure was determined for both isomers using Watson's mass-dependence method (