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

We explore the energetics of the titular reaction, which current astrochemical databases consider 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.

Daniel W. Savin, Roshan G. Bhaskar, Shreyas Vissapragada, Xavier Urbain
(Submitted on 5 Jul 2017)

Comments:    Accepted for publication in ApJ; 14 pages, 2 figures, and 1 table
Subjects:    Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA); Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM); Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
Cite as:    arXiv:1707.01456 [astro-ph.GA] (or arXiv:1707.01456v1 [astro-ph.GA] for this version)
Submission history
From: Daniel Wolf Savin
[v1] Wed, 5 Jul 2017 16:30:47 GMT (495kb,D)
https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01456
Astrobiology