Arecibo obs. of formaldehyde in L1551

The observations were conducted with the Arecibo Telescope (beam FWHP~1') to verify the tentative detection of H_2_CO thermal emission reported by Duncan and collaborators in 1987MNRAS.224..721D. The H_2_CO emission lines were expected to be present with a signal-to-noise ratio of >~10 in our spectra.

However, we did not detect H_2_CO emission; i.e., our data rule out their tentative detection. The absence of H_2_CO emission is also confirmed by the fact that the H_2_CO line profiles at the two positions of expected emission are well fitted by a single absorption component (accounting for the hyperfine structure of the line) in one of the positions and by a single absorption line plus a red-wing absorption component in the second position.