We present evidence of 6.7 GHz methanol ( CH _ { 3 } OH ) and 4.8 GHz formaldehyde ( H _ { 2 } CO ) absorption towards the Galactic Center ( GC ) point-source ‘ N3 ’ .
Both absorption features are unresolved and spatially aligned with N3 .
The 6.7 GHz CH _ { 3 } OH contains a single velocity component ( centered at \sim 10 km s ^ { -1 } ) while the 4.8 GHz H _ { 2 } CO shows two velocity components ( centered at \sim - 3 and +8 km s ^ { -1 } ) .
We find that the velocity of these absorption components are similar to that of emission lines from other molecules ( e.g. , SiO and HC _ { 3 } N ) detected toward this compact-source ( - 13 to +25 km s ^ { -1 } ; ‘ N3 cloud ’ ) .
The detection of these absorption features is a firm indication that some of the molecular gas in the N3 molecular cloud is on the near-side of the continuum source .
Analysis of the CH _ { 3 } OH absorption kinematics shows a relatively large velocity dispersion ( 3.8 km s ^ { -1 } ) for the size scale of this feature ( < 0 \farcs 1 , < 0.01 pc at the GC ; ) , when compared with other similar size GC clouds in the Larson linewidth-size relationship .
Further , this linewidth is closer to velocity dispersion measurements for size scales of 1.3 pc , which is roughly the width of the N3 cloud ( 25 \arcsec ; 1.0 pc ) .
We argue that this relatively broad linewidth , over a small cross-sectional area , is due to turbulence through the depth of the cloud , where the cloud has a presumed line-of-sight thickness of \sim 1 pc .