SEARCH FOR $H_2COH+\;AND\;H_2^{13}CO$ IN DENSE INTERSTELLAR MOLECULAR CLOUDS

We have searched for the 2 mm transitions of $H_2COH^+(2_{02}-1_{01})$ and $H_2\;^{13}CO(2_{02} - 1_{01},\; 2_{12}-1_{11},\;and\;2_{11}-1_{10})$ toward the dense interstellar molecular clouds Orion A, TMC-1 and L134N using the FCRAO 14 m telescope. None of the transitions have been detected except the $H_2\;^{13}CO$ transitions toward Orion-KL. We set upper limits for the abundances of the protonated formaldehyde ion $(H_2COH^+)$, which are close to the abundances expected from ion-molecule chemistry.