Branching ratios of C2 products in the photodissociation of C2H at 193 nm

Photoinduced C–H bond fission in prototypical organic molecules and radicals

We survey and assess current knowledge regarding the primary photochemistry of hydrocarbon molecules and radicals.

The chemistry of disks around T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars

CONTEXT

Infrared and (sub-)mm observations of disks around T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be stars point to a chemical differentiation between both types of disks, with a lower detection rate of molecules in disks around hotter stars.

AIMS

To investigate the underlying causes of the chemical differentiation indicated by observations we perform a comparative study of the chemistry of T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be disks. This is one of the first studies to compare chemistry in the outer regions of these two types of disks.

METHODS

We developed a model to compute the chemical composition of a generic protoplanetary disk, with particular attention to the photochemistry, and applied it to a T Tauri and a Herbig Ae/Be disk. We compiled cross sections and computed photodissociation and photoionization rates at each location in the disk by solving the FUV radiative transfer in a 1+1D approach using the Meudon PDR code and adopting observed stellar spectra.

RESULTS

The warmer disk temperatures and higher ultraviolet flux of Herbig stars compared to T Tauri stars induce some differences in the disk chemistry. In the hot inner regions, H2O, and simple organic molecules like C2H2, HCN, and CH4 are predicted to be very abundant in T Tauri disks and even more in Herbig Ae/Be disks, in contrast with infrared observations that find a much lower detection rate of water and simple organics toward disks around hotter stars. In the outer regions, the model indicates that the molecules typically observed in disks, like HCN, CN, C2H, H2CO, CS, SO, and HCO+, do not have drastic abundance differences between T Tauri and Herbig Ae disks. Some species produced under the action of photochemistry, like C2H and CN, are predicted to have slightly lower abundances around Herbig Ae stars due to a narrowing of the photochemically active layer. Observations indeed suggest that these radicals are somewhat less abundant in Herbig Ae disks, although in any case the inferred abundance differences are small, of a factor of a few at most. A clear chemical differentiation between both types of disks concerns ices. Owing to the warmer temperatures of Herbig Ae disks, one expects snowlines lying farther away from the star and a lower mass of ices compared to T Tauri disks.

CONCLUSIONS

The global chemical behavior of T Tauri and Herbig Ae/Be disks is quite similar. The main differences are driven by the warmer temperatures of the latter, which result in a larger reservoir or water and simple organics in the inner regions and a lower mass of ices in the outer disk.

Elementary reactions and their role in gas-phase prebiotic chemistry

The formation of complex organic molecules in a reactor filled with gaseous mixtures possibly reproducing the primitive terrestrial atmosphere and ocean demonstrated more than 50 years ago that inorganic synthesis of prebiotic molecules is possible, provided that some form of energy is provided to the system. After that groundbreaking experiment, gas-phase prebiotic molecules have been observed in a wide variety of extraterrestrial objects (including interstellar clouds, comets and planetary atmospheres) where the physical conditions vary widely. A thorough characterization of the chemical evolution of those objects relies on a multi-disciplinary approach: 1) observations allow us to identify the molecules and their number densities as they are nowadays; 2) the chemistry which lies behind their formation starting from atoms and simple molecules is accounted for by complex reaction networks; 3) for a realistic modeling of such networks, a number of experimental parameters are needed and, therefore, the relevant molecular processes should be fully characterized in laboratory experiments. A survey of the available literature reveals, however, that much information is still lacking if it is true that only a small percentage of the elementary reactions considered in the models have been characterized in laboratory experiments. New experimental approaches to characterize the relevant elementary reactions in laboratory are presented and the implications of the results are discussed.

Reaction dynamics of carbon-bearing radicals in circumstellar envelopes of carbon stars

Crossed molecular beams experiments on dicarbon molecules, C2(X1sigmag+/a3piu), with unsaturated hydrocarbons acetylene (C2H2(X1sigmag+), ethylene (C2H4(X1Ag)), methylacetylene (CH3CCH(X1A1)), and allene (H2CCCH2 (X1A1)) were carried out at 18 collision energies between 10.6 and 50.3 kJ mol(-1) utilizing a universal crossed beams machine to untangle the reaction dynamics forming hydrogen deficient hydrocarbon radicals in circumstellar envelopes of carbons stars and in cold molecular clouds. We find that all reactions proceed without the entrance barrier through indirect (complex forming) scattering dynamics. Each bimolecular collision is initiated by an addition of the dicarbon molecule to the pi bond of the unsaturated hydrocarbon molecule yielding initially acyclic (triplet) and three- or four-membered cyclic collision complexes (triplet and singlet surface). On the singlet surface, the cyclic structures isomerize to form eventually diacetylene (HCCCCH; C2/C2H2), butatriene (H2CCCCH2; C2/C2H4), methyldiacetylene (CH3CCCCH; C2/CH3CCH), and pentatetraene (H2CCCCCH2; C2/H2CCCH2) intermediates. The latter were found to decompose via atomic hydrogen loss yielding the buta-1,3-diynyl [C4H(X2sigma+) HCCCC], 1-butene-3-yne-2-yl [i-C4H3(X2A') H2CCCCH], penta-2,4-diynyl-1 [C5H3(X2B1) HCCCCCH2], and penta-1,4-diynyl-3 radical [C5H3(X2B1) HCCCHCCH] under single collision conditions. The underlying characteristics of these dicarbon versus atomic hydrogen replacement pathways (indirect scattering dynamics; no entrance barrier; isomerization barriers below the energy of the separated reactants; exoergic reactions) suggest the enormous potential of the dicarbon plus unsaturated hydrocarbon reaction class to form highly hydrogen-deficient carbonaceous molecules in cold molecular clouds and in circumstellar envelopes of carbon stars. The studies therefore present an important advancement in establishing a comprehensive database of reaction intermediates and products involved in bimolecular collisions of dicarbon molecules with unsaturated hydrocarbons which can be utilized in refined astrochemical models and also in future searches of hitherto unidentified interstellar molecules. Implications of these experiments to understand related combustion processes are also addressed.

The reaction products of the 193 nm photolysis of vinyl bromide and vinyl chloride studied by time-resolved Fourier transform infrared emission spectroscopy

Time-resolved Fourier transform infrared (TRFTIR) emission spectroscopy has been used to study the 193 nm photolysis of vinyl bromide (C(2)H(3)Br) and vinyl chloride (C(2)H(3)Cl). Time-resolved IR emission was analysed to obtain nascent vibrational state populations of two primary photolysis products: HBr (v = 1-7) and HCl (v = 1-6). In both cases the nascent vibrational state populations monotonically decrease with increasing v and are in excellent agreement with previously published data. Time-resolved populations were analysed to yield rate constants for vibrational relaxation of HBr (v = 1-3) and HCl (v = 1-4) by parent vinyl bromide and vinyl chloride, respectively. In both cases the rate constants were found to increase with increasing vibrational quantum number, in agreement with a single quantum de-excitation via vibrational to vibrational energy transfer. Butadiene (C(4)H(6)) was identified as a secondary product of the photolysis of both vinyl halides, and shown to be formed from the reaction of parent vinyl halide with the vinyl radical. The presence of a buffer gas was found to produce a strong emission feature centred at 2,200 cm(-1), the intensity of which was dependent on the pressure of the buffer gas used, and whose kinetics are indicative of a secondary reaction product. We propose that this emission is from the vibrational progression of the electronic transition A(0, v, 1) --> X(0, v, 2) in the secondary reaction product C(2)H, whose formation route is favoured by the presence of buffer gas.

Photodissociation of CCH: Classical trajectory calculations involving seven electronic states

The photodissociation dynamics of ethynyl radical, C(2)H, involving seven electronic states is studied by classical trajectory calculations. Initial values of the trajectories are selected based on relative absorption intensities calculated by Mebel et al. The energies and the derivatives are interpolated by three-dimensional cubic spline interpolator using an extended data pool. Mean square errors and standard deviations in interpolation of energies for 450 data points are found to be in the range 3.1 x 10(-6)-1.4 x 10(-5) and 1.7 x 10(-3)-3.8 x 10(-3) hartrees, respectively. The photofragments of C(2) and H are produced mainly in the X (1)Sigma(g) (+), a (3)Pi(u), b (3)Sigma(g) (-), c (3)Sigma(u) (+), A (1)Pi(u), B (1)Delta(g) electronic states of C(2) as product. The avoided crossings do not appear to be in the main dissociation pathways. The internal distributions are in good accord with the experimental results where comparison is possible, suggesting that the fragmentation mechanism of C(2)H(2) into C(2) and H is a two step process involving C(2)H radical as an intermediate with a life time long enough to allow complete collection of the phase space in the experiments.

Performance of time-dependent density functional and Green functions methods for calculations of excitation energies in radicals and for Rydberg electronic states

Time-dependent density functional (TD-DFT) and perturbation theory-based outer valence Green functions (OVGF) methods have been tested for calculations of excitation energies for a set of radicals, molecules, and model clusters simulating points defects in silica. The results show that the TD-DFT approach may give unreliable results not only for diffuse Rydberg states, but also for electronic states involving transitions between MOs localized in two remote from each other spatial regions, for example, for charge-transfer excitations. For the. O-SiX(3) clusters, where X is a single-valence group, TD-DFT predicts reasonable excitation energies but incorrect sequence of electronic transitions. For a number of cases where TD-DFT is shown to be unreliable, the OVGF approach can provide better estimates of excitation energies, but this method also is not expected to perform universally well. The OVGF performance is demonstrated to be satisfactory for excitations with predominantly single-determinant wave functions where the deviations of the calculated energies from experiment should not exceed 0.1-0.3 eV. However, for more complicated transitions involving multiple bonds or for excited states with multireference wave functions the OVGF approach is less reliable and error in the computed energies can reach 0.5-1 eV.