Primitive extraterrestrial materials are characterized by a large heterogeneity of composition at small scales. This heterogeneity is observed in the laboratory on some meteorites and interplanetary dust with different techniques. Among these, infrared micro-spectroscopy has the advantage of being totally non-destructive and allowing a direct comparison with the astronomical observations of...
We present some results obtained by measuring VUV photoabsorption spectra in the range 110-340 nm of hydrocarbon-bearing ices and their mixtures with nitrogen. Samples have been irradiated with energetic (1 keV) electrons simulating conditions relevant to the icy bodies of the Solar System and icy mantles on grains in the interstellar or circumstellar medium. Ices in different astrophysical...
The identification and quantification of molecules in space relies on spectroscopic methods (in particular rotational spectroscopy) and laboratory work is essential to provide the community with the spectral features needed to analyze the cosmological surveys.
Many of the molecules searched for in space, are complex organic molecules, which show a high degree of molecular flexibility. The...
Experimentally determined optical constants and in particular absorption coefficients of astrophysical ice analogs in the terahertz region are missing. These data are very important to determine how the dust opacity changes when the grains are covered with ice mantles. Thus, more accurate mass determinations can be carried out using the dust continuum emission, especially in cold and dense...
Today thanks to the advent of large telescopes, an increasing number of gas phase complex molecules is observed in star forming regions, prestellar dense cores, circumstellar disks and winds [1, 2, 3]. Planets are formed in protoplanetary disks during the first millions of years of stellar evolution. Thus, it is important to understand if molecules observed in gas phase, are already available...
Introduction: While being less abundant, and hence more difficult to detect with respect to neutrals, molecular ions play a key role in the interstellar medium (ISM) and planetary atmospheres, as intermediate steps in the build-up of complex organic molecules (COMs). For instance, the dissociative recombination of C2NH2+ is crucial to link methanimine and ammonia (Yuen et al. 2019) in both...
