Related papers: Interstellar and circumstellar fullerenes
C60 molecules form spontaneously during vaporization of carbon associated with intense heating and turbulence such as in electrical arcs or flames. Self-organization of fluctuations in the highly turbulent (chaotic) atomized carbon vapor…
It is long debated if pre-biotic molecules are indeed present in the interstellar medium. Despite substantial works pointing to their existence, pre-biotic molecules are yet to be discovered with a complete confidence. In this paper, our…
Evolved stars are primary sources for the formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dust grains. Their circumstellar chemistry is usually designated as either oxygen-rich or carbon-rich, although dual-dust chemistry objects,…
Hydrocarbons play a key role in shaping the chemistry of the interstellar medium (ISM), but their enrichment and relationship with carbonaceous grains and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) still lack clear observational constraints.…
Filaments are a ubiquitous morphological feature of the molecular interstellar medium and are identified as sites of star formation. In recent years, more than 100 large-scale filaments (with a length $>10$\,pc) have been observed in the…
Carbonaceous grains represent a major component of cosmic dust. In order to understand their formation pathways, they have been prepared in the laboratory by gas-phase condensation reactions such as laser pyrolysis and laser ablation. Our…
Infrared spectra of carbon-rich objects which have evolved off the asymptotic giant branch reveal a range of dust properties, including fullerenes, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), aliphatic hydrocarbons, and several unidentified…
The detection of organic molecules with increasing complexity and potential biological relevance is opening the possibility to understand the formation of the building blocks of life in the interstellar medium. One of the families of…
Phosphorus is a crucial element for the development of life, but so far P-bearing molecules have been detected only in a few astrophysical objects, hence its interstellar chemistry is almost totally unknown. Here we show new detections of…
Early B-type stars are invaluable indicators for elemental abundances of their birth environments. In contrast to the surrounding neutral interstellar matter (ISM) and HII regions their chemical composition is unaffected by depletion onto…
The first radio surveys of the sky discovered that some large clusters of galaxies contained powerful sources of synchrotron emission. Optical images showed that long linear filaments with bizarre emission-line spectra permeated the…
Interstellar masers are unique probes of the environments in which they arise. In studies of high-mass star formation their primary function has been as signposts of these regions and they have been used as probes of the kinematics and…
In order to understand the star formation process under the influence of HII regions, we have carried out extensive investigations to well selected star-forming regions which all have been profoundly affected by existing massive O type…
Molecular emission is observed in a wide variety of astrophysical environments, yet a substantial fraction of spectral features detected at mm wavelengths remains unidentified. Identifying these features is essential for constraining the…
A model has been developed that illustrates the emergence of C60 from the condensing carbon vapor. It is shown to depend upon the decreasing heats of formation for larger cages, exponentially increasing number of isomers for fullerenes that…
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are some of the major dust components in the interstellar medium (ISM). We present our evolution models for the abundance of PAHs in the ISM on a galaxy-evolution timescale. We consider shattering of…
Astrochemistry lies at the nexus of astronomy, chemistry, and molecular physics. On the basis of precise laboratory data, a rich collection of more than 200 familiar and exotic molecules have been identified in the interstellar medium, the…
A prevailing theory for the interstellar production of complex organic molecules (COMs) involves formation on warm dust-grain surfaces, via the diffusion and reaction of radicals produced through grain-surface photodissociation of stable…
In the interstellar medium (ISM), polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are believed to be an important carbon reservoir, accounting for up to a quarter of all interstellar carbon in our galaxy. This makes the investigation of their…
The trending term "filament" is extensively used in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the star formation community, and is believed to be one of the most important objects that gauge molecular cloud and star formation. However, the physical…