Related papers: A Possible Additional Formation Pathway for the In…
The formation of CO2 in quiescent regions of molecular clouds is not yet fully understood, despite CO2 having an abundance of around 10-34 % H2O. We present a study of the formation of CO2 via the non-energetic route CO + OH on non-porous…
CS is among the most abundant gas-phase S-bearing molecules in cold dark molecular clouds. It is easily observable with several transitions in the millimeter wavelength range, and has been widely used as a tracer of the gas density in the…
Icy interstellar dust grains are a source of complex organic molecule (COM) production, although their formation mechanisms are debated. Laboratory experiments show that atomic C deposited onto interstellar ice analogs can react with…
A long standing problem in astrochemistry is the inability of many current models to account for missing sulfur content. Many relatively simple species that may be good candidates to sequester sulfur have not been measured experimentally at…
Interstellar shocks, a key element of stellar feedback processes, shape the structure of the interstellar medium (ISM) and are essential for the chemistry, thermodynamics, and kinematics of interstellar gas. Powerful, high-velocity shocks…
Porous single layer molybdenum disulfide (MoS$_2$) is a promising material for applications such as DNA sequencing and water desalination. In this work, we introduce irradiation with highly charged ions (HCIs) as a new technique to…
The composition of a planet's atmosphere is intricately linked to the chemical makeup of the protoplanetary disk in which it formed. Determining the elemental abundances from key volatiles within disks is therefore essential for…
A significant number of S0 galaxies with a detectable ISM show some level of on-going massive-star formation activity in the form of visible HII regions. A rich ISM, however, does not guarantee star formation: a similar number of gas-rich…
The formation of interstellar water has been commonly accepted to occur on the surfaces of icy dust grains in dark molecular clouds at low temperatures (10-20 K), involving hydrogenation reactions of oxygen allotropes. As a result of the…
Experimental results on the formation of molecular hydrogen on amorphous silicate surfaces are presented for the first time and analyzed using a rate equation model. The energy barriers for the relevant diffusion and desorption processes…
In recent years the chemistry of sulfur in the interstellar medium has experienced a renewed interest due to the detection of a large variety of molecules containing sulfur. Here we report the first identification in space of a new…
The existence of conduction channels in lithium silicate (Li_2O)(SiO_2) is investigated. Regions of the system where many different ions pass by form channels and are thus spatially correlated. For a closer analysis the properties of 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…
We consider the possibility that solid molecular hydrogen is present in interstellar space. If so cosmic-rays and energetic photons cause ionisation in the solid leading to the formation of H6+. This ion is not produced by gas-phase…
The formation of Ni(Pt)silicides on a Si(001) surface is investigated using an ab initio approach. After deposition of a Ni overlayer alloyed with Pt, the calculations reveal fast diffusion of Ni atoms into the Si lattice, which leads…
Dimethyl ether is one of the most abundant interstellar complex organic molecules. Yet its formation route remains elusive. In this work, we have performed electronic structure and kinetics calculations to derive the rate coefficients for…
Interstellar complex organic molecules (iCOMs) can be loosely defined as chemical compounds with at least six atoms in which at least one is carbon. The observations of iCOMs in star-forming regions have shown that they contain an important…
In the currently-accepted model for star formation out of the interstellar gas in galaxies, the basic construction material is assumed to be large clouds of atomic hydrogen (HI). These clouds are thought to form higher-density complexes of…
The detection of the 11.3-micron emission feature characteristic of the Si--C stretch in carbon-rich evolved stars reveals that silicon carbide (SiC) dust grains are condensed in the outflows of carbon stars. SiC dust could be a significant…
Detailed quantum chemistry calculations within the multireference configuration interaction approximation with the Davidson correction (MRCI+Q) are presented using an aug-cc-pV6Z basis set, for the potential energy curves and transition…