Inostroza Pino, Natalia

Context. The detection of NH2CH2CH2OH (ethanolamine) in molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027 adds an additional player to the pre-biotic molecules discovered so far in the interstellar medium (ISM). As this molecule might be formed through condensed-phase hydrogenation steps, detecting one or more of the molecules involved might help to elucidate the chemical pathway leading to its production. Aims. The chemical path involves the formation of four chemical species. In this work, we study the energies of the isomers involved, indicate the best candidates for detection purposes, and provide the distortion constants of the most energetically favoured isomers undetected so far. Methods. We used highly accurate CCSD(T)-F12/cc-pCVTZ-F12 computations to predict the lowest energy isomers as well as their spectroscopic constants, taking corrections for core electron correlation and scalar relativity into account. Results. We studied 14 isomers. We find that the lowest energy isomer proposed in previous studies is not the actual minimum. We provide a set of rotational and distortion constants of the two new most stable isomers together with their fundamental vibrational frequencies in order to guide the search for these important astrochemical precursors of prebiotic molecules in the ISM. © 2024 EDP Sciences. All rights reserved.

We modeled the collisions between OH+ projectiles with kinetic energies ranging from 10 to 22 eV and an amorphous cold (CH3OH)10 substrate using Born-Oppenheimer molecular dynamics (BOMD) simulations. We conducted the simulations for a collision time of 400 femtoseconds (fs), during which we followed multiple bond-forming and breaking reactions. Here, we report four new pathways for the formation of formic acid HCOOH. We find new precursors such as CH3(OH)+2 , HC(OH)+2 , CH2OH+, and CH2(OH)2, which are essential in these pathways for the formation of formic acid. The methanodiol CH2(OH)2 and hydroxymethyl CH2OH+ cations have previously been identified as key precursors of formaldehyde. These pathways suggest new ways to form formic acid in methanol ice mantles on dust grains, offering alternative mechanisms leading to the formation of complex organic molecules (COMs) in space.