Articles

On the Energetics of the HCO+ + C → CH+ + CO Reaction and Some Astrochemical Implications

Savin, Daniel Wolf; Bhaskar, Roshan Ganesh; Vissapragada, S.; Urbain, X.

We explore the energetics of the titular reaction, which current astrochemical databases consider to be open at typical dense molecular (i.e., dark) cloud conditions. As is common for reactions involving the transfer of light particles, we assume that there are no intersystem crossings of the potential energy surfaces involved. In the absence of any such crossings, we find that this reaction is endoergic and will be suppressed at dark cloud temperatures. Updating accordingly a generic astrochemical model for dark clouds changes the predicted gas-phase abundances of 224 species by greater than a factor of 2. Of these species, 43 have been observed in the interstellar medium. Our findings demonstrate the astrochemical importance of determining the role of intersystem crossings, if any, in the titular reaction.

Files

  • thumnail for Savin_2017_ApJ_844_154.pdf Savin_2017_ApJ_844_154.pdf application/pdf 690 KB Download File

Also Published In

Title
The Astrophysical Journal
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/aa7bec

More About This Work

Academic Units
Astrophysics Laboratory
Published Here
September 8, 2017