Consider the overall transformation show below. In this hydrolysis reaction, a lactone (cyclic ester) is treated with aqueous acid to yield an acyclic carboxylic acid that also contains an alcohol functional group. In the space below, propose a curved-arrow mechanism for this hydrolysis reaction. Be sure to draw structures of all important reaction intermediates. If an intermediate is a resonance hybrid, it is only necessary to draw the structure of one important contributing resonance structure. Please note that this reaction occurs in ACID - all charged organic intermediates should be CATIONIC.
