Related papers: The aromatic Universe
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are ubiquitous in astrophysical environments, as revealed by their pronounced emission features at 3.3, 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, 11.3, and 12.7 $\mu$m commonly ascribed to the C--H and C--C vibrational modes.…
Thanks to high sensitivity and angular resolution and broad spectral coverage, SPICA will offer a unique opportunity to better characterize the nature of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and very small grains (VSGs), to better use…
Strong dynamics constitutes one of the pillars of the standard model of particle interactions, and it accounts for the bulk of the visible matter in the universe. It is therefore a well posed question to ask if the rest of the universe can…
The emergence of the first bilayer B48, which has been both theoretically predicted and experimentally observed, as well as the recent experimental synthesis of bilayer borophene on Ag and Cu, has generated tremendous curiosity in the…
A simple prototypical model of aromatic pi-pi stacking system -- benzene sandwich dimer is investigated by ab initio calculations based on second-order Moller-Plesset perturbation theory (MP2) and Minnesota hybrid functional M06-2X.
The Interest in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) spans numerous fields and infrared spectroscopy is usually the method of choice to disentangle their molecular structure. In order to compute vibrational frequencies, numerous…
Small cationic fullerene fragments, produced by electron impact ionization of C60, were mass-selected and accumulated in cryogenic Ne matrixes. Optical absorption spectroscopy of these fragments with up to 18 carbon atoms revealed linear…
The recent detection of fullerene (C$_{60}$) in space and the positive assignment of five diffuse interstellar bands to C$_{60}^+$ reinforce the notion that fullerene-related compounds can be efficiently formed in circumstellar envelopes…
The proposed paradigm of plasmonic atoms and plasmonic molecules allows one to describe and predict the strongly localized plasmonic oscillations in the clusters of nanoparticles and some other nanostructures in uniform way. Strongly…
The presence of carbon-chain molecules in the interstellar medium (ISM) has been known since the early 1970s and $>130$ such species have been identified to date, making up $\sim 43$% of the total of detected ISM molecules. They are…
The polarization state of starlight reflected by a planetary atmosphere uniquely reveals coverage, particle size, and composition of aerosols as well as changing cloud patterns. It is not possible to obtain a comparable level of detailed…
Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are believed to be ubiquitous in the interstellar medium. Yet, to date no specific PAH molecule has been identified. In this paper, a new observational avenue is suggested to detect individual PAHs,…
In this paper we study the structure and thermochemical properties of some new polycarbonyl compounds, with particular attention devoted to the study of (CO)$_n$ complexes, which are expected to be present in magnegases^TM. The latter are…
Neutrino flavor transformations in core-collapse supernovae and binary neutron star mergers represent a complex and unsolved problem that is integral to our understanding of the dynamics and nucleosynthesis in these environments. The high…
In dense neutrino backgrounds present in supernovae and in the early Universe neutrino oscillations may exhibit complex collective phenomena, such as synchronized oscillations, bipolar oscillations and spectral splits and swaps. We consider…
In 1985, "During experiments aimed at understanding the mechanisms by which long-chain carbon molecules are formed in interstellar space and circumstellar shells", Harry Kroto and his collaborators serendipitously discovered a new form of…
We present the experimental discovery of compound structures comprising solitons and vortex rings in Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs). We examine both their creation via soliton-vortex collisions and their subsequent development, which is…
A highly excited Friedmann universe filled with a scalar field and radiation has been considered. On the basis of a direct solution to the quantum-mechanical problem with a well-defined time variable, it has been shown that such a universe…
Benzonitrile ($c$-C$_6$H$_5$CN), a polar proxy for benzene ($c$-C$_6$H$_6$}), has the potential to serve as a highly convenient radio probe for aromatic chemistry, provided this ring can be found in other astronomical sources beyond the…
In condensed matter systems, the atoms, electrons or spins can sometimes arrange themselves in ways that result in unexpected properties but that cannot be detected by conventional experimental probes. Several historical and contemporary…