Related papers: Molecular dynamics simulations of D2O ice photodes…
The morphology of water ice in the interstellar medium is still an open question. Although accretion of gaseous water could not be the only possible origin of the observed icy mantles covering dust grains in cold molecular clouds, it is…
Nonthermal desorption of molecules from icy grain surfaces is required to explain molecular line observations in the cold gas of star-forming regions. Chemical desorption is one of the nonthermal desorption processes and is driven by the…
Photodissociation is the dominant removal process of molecules in any region exposed to intense ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This includes diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds, dense photon-dominated regions, high velocity shocks, the…
First-principles calculations based on density functional theory and the pseudopotential method have been used to investigate the energetics of H$_2$O adsorption on the (110) surface of TiO$_2$ and SnO$_2$. Full relaxation of all atomic…
In this work we investigate the dissociation of CO$_2$ on Cu(110) by performing density functional theory calculations using the vdW-DF2 exchange-correlation functional, with a potential energy surface parameterized using artificial neural…
The study of the formation of molecular hydrogen on low temperature surfaces is of interest both because it allows to explore elementary steps in the heterogeneous catalysis of a simple molecule and because of the applications in…
Ice mantles that formed on top of dust grains are photoprocessed by the secondary ultraviolet (UV) field in cold and dense molecular clouds. UV photons induce photochemistry and desorption of ice molecules. Experimental simulations…
We present experimental measurements of photodesorption from ices of astrophysical relevance. Layers of benzene and water ice were irradiated with a laser tuned to an electronic transition in the benzene molecule. The translational energy…
The interstellar medium is known to be chemically complex. Organic molecules with up to 11 atoms have been detected in the interstellar medium, and are believed to be formed on the ices around dust grains. The ices can be released into the…
At low temperatures (10 K), hydrogen atoms can diffuse quickly on grain ice mantles and frequently encounter hydrogen molecules, which cover a notable fraction of grain surface. The desorption energy of H atoms on H2 substrates is much less…
X-ray photodesorption yields of $^{15}$N$_2$ and $^{13}$CO are derived as a function of the incident photon energy near the N ($\sim$400 eV) and O K-edge ($\sim$500 eV) for pure $^{15}$N$_2$ ice and mixed $^{13}$CO:$^{15}$N$_2$ ices. The…
A new experimental set-up INterStellar Ice-Dust Experiment (INSIDE), was designed for studying cosmic grain analogues represented by ice-coated carbon- and silicate-based dust grains. In the new instrument, we can simulate physical and…
Ab initio molecular dynamics calculations of deuterium desorbing from Si(100) have been performed in order to monitor the energy redistribution among the various D$_2$ and silicon degrees of freedom during the desorption process. The…
Ab initio molecular dynamics calculations of deuterium desorbing from Si(100) have been performed in order to monitor the energy redistribution among the hydrogen and silicon degrees of freedom during the desorption process. The…
The desorption characteristics of molecules on interstellar dust grains are important for modelling the behaviour of molecules in icy mantles and, critically, in describing the solid-gas interface. In this study, a series of laboratory…
We model the temperature and chemical structure of molecular clouds as a function of depth into the cloud, assuming a cloud of constant density n illuminated by an external FUV (6 eV < E < 13.6 eV) flux G_0 (scaling factor in multiples of…
We present a computational study into the adsorption properties of CO$_2$ on amorphous and crystalline water surfaces under astrophysically relevant conditions. Water and carbon dioxide are two of the most dominant species in the icy…
We have investigated the thermally induced proton/deuteron exchange in mixed amorphous H$_2$O:D$_2$O ices by monitoring the change in intensity of characteristic vibrational bending modes of H$_2$O, HDO, and D$_2$O with time and as function…
We report the first six-dimensional quantum dynamical calculations of dissociative adsorption and associative desorption. Using a potential energy surface obtained by density functional theory calculations, we show that the initial decrease…
A new collection of photodissociation and photoionisation cross sections for 102 atoms and molecules of astrochemical interest has been assembled, along with a brief review of the basic processes involved. These have been used to calculate…