THE COMPLETE, TEMPERATURE RESOLVED EXPERIMENTAL SPECTRUM OF METHANOL (CH3OH) BETWEEN 214.6 AND 265.4 GHz

The spectrum of methanol (CH3OH) has been characterized between 214.6 and 265.4 GHz for astrophysically significant temperatures. Four hundred and eighty-six spectra with absolute intensity calibration recorded between 240 and 389K provided a means for the calculation of the complete experimental spectrum (CES) of methanol as a function of temperature. The CES includes contributions from upsilon(t) = 3 and other higher states that are difficult to model quantum mechanically (QM). It also includes the spectrum of the C-13 isotopologue in terrestrial abundance. In general the QM models provide frequencies that are within 1 MHz of their experimental values, but there are several outliers that differ by tens of MHz. As in our recent work on methanol in the 560-654 GHz region, significant intensity differences between our experimental intensities and cataloged values were found. In this work these differences are explored in the context of several QM analyses. The experimental results presented here are analyzed to provide a frequency point-by-point catalog that is well suited for the simulation of crowded and overlapped spectra. Additionally, a catalog in the usual line frequency, line strength, and lower state energy format is provided.