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Methanol in the L1551 Circumbinary Torus

We report observations of gaseous methanol in an edge-on torus surrounding the young stellar object L1551 IRS5. The peaks in the torus are separated by ~ 10,000 AU from L1551 IRS5, and contain ~ 0.03 earth masses of cold methanol. We infer that the methanol abundance increases in the outer part of the torus, probably as a result of methanol evaporation from dust grain surfaces heated by the shock luminosity associated with the shocks associated with the jets of an externally located x-ray source. Any methanol released in such a cold environment will rapidly freeze again, spreading methanol throughout the circumbinary torus to nascent dust grains, planitesimals, and primitive bodies. These observations probe the initial chemical conditions of matter infalling onto the disk.