Understanding the destruction of CH+ with atomic hydrogen at low temperatures: a non-adiabatic dynamical study
[EN]Carbon hydrides play a crucial role in the formation of complex organic molecules in highly UV illuminated regions of the interstellar medium (ISM). The formation of CH+ is the first step in the reactions leading to the formation of various carbon hydrides. CH+ formation is relatively well under...
| Autores: | , , , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión borrador |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de Salamanca (USAL) |
| Repositorio: | GREDOS. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Salamanca |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:gredos.usal.es:10366/170282 |
| Acceso en línea: | http://hdl.handle.net/10366/170282 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Astrochemistry Non-adiabatic |
| Sumario: | [EN]Carbon hydrides play a crucial role in the formation of complex organic molecules in highly UV illuminated regions of the interstellar medium (ISM). The formation of CH+ is the first step in the reactions leading to the formation of various carbon hydrides. CH+ formation is relatively well understood with strong agreement between theoretical and experimental results. However, its destruction by collision with the H atom, at low temperatures of interest in the ISM, is in contrast still not well understood and there is a large discrepancy between theoretical and experimental data [R. Plasil et al., AstroPhys. J., 2011, 737, 1], which are almost an order of magnitude smaller than various classical and quantum mechanical calculations. In this work we have computed and fitted a new set of non-adiabatic potential energy surfaces (PES) for the title system, including the three lower adiabatic states. We then investigate three possible sources of disagreement with the experimental results: non-adiabatic effects from regions near the conical intersections, and rotational and vibrational excitation of the CH+ molecule. We conclude that vibrational excitation of the CH+ plays a major role in reducing the reactivity at low temperatures, and we raise the question of whether vibrational thermalization of the CH+ is not fully achieved in the experiment. Such non-thermalized conditions could explain the decrease of the measured reaction rate constant. |
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