Related papers: Chemical and radiative transfer modeling of Propyl…
Life on Earth relies on chiral molecules, that is, species not superimposable on their mirror images. This manifests itself in the selection of a single molecular handedness, or homochirality, across the biosphere. We present the…
The first excited torsional state of the chiral molecule propylene oxide, $\mathrm{CH_{3}C_{2}H_{3}O}$, is investigated from millimeter up to sub-millimeter wavelengths (75-950 GHz). The first excited vibrational mode of propylene oxide,…
The first set of theoretical cross sections for propylene oxide (CH3CHCH2O) colliding with cold He atoms has been obtained at the full quantum level using a high-accuracy potential energy surface. By scaling the collision reduced mass,…
Propylene oxide, a favorite target of experimental and theoretical studies of circular dichroism, was recently discovered in interstellar space, further amplifying the attention to its role in the current debate on protobiological…
(Abridged) Life is distinctly homochiral. The origins of this homochirality are under active debate. Recently, propylene-oxide has been detected in the gas-phase interstellar medium (ISM) (McGuire et al. 2016). The enantiomeric composition…
Propylene oxide is one of the simplest organic chiral molecules and has attracted considerable interest from the scientific community a few years ago, when it was discovered in the interstellar medium. Here, we report a preliminary study on…
Despite its potential reactivity due to ring strain, ethylene oxide (c-C2H4O) is a complex molecule that seems to be stable under the physical conditions of an interstellar dense core; indeed it has been detected towards several high-mass…
Complex organic molecules, such as propylene (CH3CHCH2), are detected in molecular clouds (such as TMC1) with high fractional abundances (~2.10^{-9}, relative to hydrogen) that cannot be explained by gas-phase chemical reactions under…
Complex organic molecules serve as indicators of molecular diversity. Their detection on comets, planets, and moons has prompted inquiries into their origins, particularly the conditions conducive to their formation. One hypothesis suggests…
The tracking of symmetry-breaking events in space is a longlasting goal of astrochemists, aiming at an understanding of homochiral Earth chemistry. One current effort at this frontier aims at the detection of small chiral molecules in the…
Since molecules are ubiquitous in space, the study of the 'Molecular Universe' could unfold the mystery of the existing Interstellar medium. Star formation is linked to the chemical evolution processes. Thus, an analysis of the formation of…
The increased sensitivity and spectral resolution of observed spectra towards the pre-stellar core L1544 are challenging the current physical and chemical models. With the aim of further constraining the structure of L1544 as well as…
A gas-grain time dependent chemical code, UCL\_CHEM, has been used to investigate the possibility of using chemical tracers to differentiate between the possible formation mechanisms of brown dwarfs. In this work, we model the formation of…
We analyze hydrodynamic simulations of turbulent, star-forming molecular clouds that are post-processed with the photo-dissociation region astrochemistry code 3D-PDR. We investigate the sensitivity of 15 commonly applied turbulence…
Gas-phase processes were long thought to be the key formation mechanisms for complex organic molecules in star-forming regions. However, recent experimental and theoretical evidence has cast doubt on the efficiency of such processes.…
Complex organic molecules (COMs) are detected in many regions of the interstellar medium, including prestellar cores. However, their formation mechanisms in cold (~10 K) cores remain to this date poorly understood. The formyl radical HCO is…
Phosphorus related species are not known to be as omnipresent in space as hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur-bearing species. Astronomers spotted very few P-bearing molecules in the interstellar medium and circumstellar…
Most of our knowledge regarding molecular clouds and the early stages of star formation stems from molecular spectral-line observations. However, the various chemical and radiative-transfer effects, in combination with projection effects,…
We investigate molecular evolution in a star-forming core that is initially a hydrostatic starless core and collapses to form a low-mass protostar. The results of a one-dimensional radiation-hydrodynamics calculation are adopted as a…
We present C18O observations of the pre-stellar core L1689B, in the (J=3-2) and (J=2-1) rotational transitions, taken at the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii. We use a lambda-iteration radiative transfer code to model the data. We…