What is PRUSSIC?

PRUSSIC is the first comprehensive census of dense gas - the fuel for star formation - in the early Universe. We use large mm-wave and radio telescopes - ALMA, NOEMA, and VLA - to observe faint, "complex" molecules such as HCN (also known as "prussic acid", hence then survey name), HCO+, and HNC in galaxies out to redshift z~5, just 1 billion years after the Big Bang. 

As these complex molecules are factor of 10-100x fainter than CO or [CII], detecting them in early galaxies is exceedingly diffucult. In PRUSSIC, we use strong gravitational lensing which magnifies background galaxies to detect the faint gas in high-redshift galaxies.

With our survey, we are bridging studies of stars (JWST) and star-formation (ALMA) - and of diffuse cold gas (ALMA / VLA).

You can see one of our spectra below!