Related papers: Methanimine as a sink in the HCN and HNC solid sta…
Gas-phase hydroxylamine (NH$_2$OH) has recently been detected within dense clouds in the interstellar medium. However, it is also likely present within interstellar ices, as well as on the icy surfaces of outer Solar System bodies, where it…
The recombination of hydrogen in the interstellar medium, taking place on surfaces of microscopic dust grains, is an essential process in the evolution of chemical complexity in interstellar clouds. The H_2 formation process has been…
We present the first spatially resolved map of methanimine CH2NH in the prestellar core L1544 using the IRAM 30m telescope. The 2$_{0,2}$-1$_{0,1}$ line at 127 GHz was mapped with 20" resolution ($\sim$2800 au), revealing extended CH2NH…
Protonated hydrogen cyanide, HCNH$^{+}$, plays a fundamental role in astrochemistry because it is an intermediary in gas-phase ion-neutral reactions within cold molecular clouds. However, the impact of the environment on the chemistry of…
The ${\rm H_2NC}$ radical is the high-energy metastable isomer of ${\rm H_2CN}$ radical, which has been recently detected for the first time in the interstellar medium towards a handful of cold galactic sources, besides a warm galaxy in…
We present HHT observations in the N=3-2 rotational transition of the CN radical toward selected positions of the Trapezium region and of the molecular Ridge in the Orion molecular cloud. Two of the positions in the Ridge were also observed…
Molecular hydrogen (H$_2$) plays a critical role in astrophysical processes from galaxy evolution to the formation of planets. While the dominant formation channel in the interstellar medium is considered as dust-catalyzed H$_2$ formation,…
Complex organic molecules (COMs) have been observed not only in the hot cores surrounding low- and high- mass protostars, but also in cold dark clouds. Therefore, it is interesting to understand how such species can be formed without the…
The formation of methanol (CH3OH) on icy grain mantles during the star formation cycle is mainly associated with the CO freeze-out stage. Yet there are reasons to believe that CH3OH also can form at an earlier period of interstellar ice…
While the abundance of elemental deuterium is relatively low (D/H ~ a few 1E-5), orders of magnitude higher D/H abundance ratios have been found for many interstellar molecules, enhanced by deuterium fractionation. In cold molecular clouds…
The impact of including the reactions of C and CH with molecular hydrogen in a gas-grain network is assessed via a sensitivity analysis. To this end, we vary 3 parameters, namely, the efficiency for the reaction \ce{C + H2 -> CH2}, and the…
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…
The Menshutkin reaction is a methyl transfer reaction relevant in fields ranging from biochemistry to chemical synthesis. In the present work, energetics and solvent distributions for NH$_{3}$+MeCl and Pyr+MeBr reactions were investigated…
Although hydrogen cyanide has become quite a common molecular tracing species for a variety of astrophysical sources, it, however, exhibits dramatic non-LTE behaviour in its hyperfine line structure. Individual hyperfine components can be…
The methylidyne radical CH is commonly used as a proxy for H$_2$ in the cold, neutral phase of the interstellar medium. The optical spectroscopy of CH is limited by interstellar extinction, whereas far-infrared observations provide an…
Deuterium enrichment of interstellar methanol is reproduced experimentally for the first time via grain-surface H-D substitution in solid methanol at an atomic D/H ratio of 0.1. Although previous gas-grain models successfully reproduce the…
We report the first ensemble results from the FUSE survey of molecular hydrogen in lines of sight with A_V $\gtrsim$ 1 mag. We have developed techniques for fitting computed profiles to the low-J lines of H2, and thus determining column…
Using quantum chemical calculations, we model the pathways for synthesizing two purine nucleobases, adenine and guanine, in the gas-phase interstellar environment, surrounded by neutral atomic hydrogen (HI). HI is found active in…
Low energy heavy-ion fusion reactions are governed by quantum tunneling through the Coulomb barrier formed by a strong cancellation of the repulsive Coulomb force with the attractive nuclear interaction between the colliding nuclei.…
Interstellar formamide (NH2CHO) has recently attracted significant attention due to its potential role as a molecular building block in the formation of precursor biomolecules relevant for the origin of life. Its formation, whether on the…