SETI public: Photodissociation of organic molecules in star-forming regions II: Acetic acid

From: LARRY KLAES (ljk4_at_msn.com)
Date: Fri Dec 23 2005 - 09:20:21 PST

  • Next message: LARRY KLAES: "SETI public: Two papers on exoworlds"

    Paper: astro-ph/0512561

    Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 13:45:36 GMT (241kb)

    Title: Photodissociation of organic molecules in star-forming regions II:
    Acetic acid

    Authors: S. Pilling (1 and 2), A. C. F. Santos (3) and H. M. Boechat-Roberty
    (1) ((1) OV-UFRJ, (2) IQ-UFRJ, (3) IF-UFRJ)

    Comments: Comments: 8 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables. Accepted to be printed in
    A&A
    \\
    Fragments from organic molecule dissociation (such as reactive ions and
    radicals) can form interstellar complex molecules like amino acids. The goal
    of
    this work is to experimentally study photoionization and photodissociation
    processes of acetic acid (CH$_3$COOH), a glycine (NH$_2$CH$_2$COOH)
    precursor
    molecule, by soft X-ray photons. The measurements were taken at the
    Brazilian
    Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), employing soft X-ray photons from a
    toroidal grating monochromator (TGM) beamline (100 - 310 eV). Mass spectra
    were
    obtained using the photoelectron photoion coincidence (PEPICO) method.
    Kinetic
    energy distribution and abundances for each ionic fragment have been
    obtained
    from the analysis of the corresponding peak shapes in the mass spectra.
    Absolute photoionization and photodissociation cross sections were also
    determined. We have found, among the channels leading to ionization, that
    only
    4-6% of CH$_3$COOH survive the strong ionization field. CH$_3$CO$^+$,
    COOH$^+$
    and CH$_3^+$ ions are the main fragments, and the presence of the former may
    indicate that the production-destruction process of acetic acid in hot
    molecular cores (HMCs) could decrease the H$_2$O abundance since the net
    result
    of this process converts H$_2$O into OH + H$^+$. The COOH$^+$ ion plays an
    important role in ion-molecule reactions to form large biomolecules like
    glycine.

    \\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512561 , 241kb)

    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Paper: astro-ph/0512563
    Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2005 14:11:29 GMT (946kb)

    Title: Molecular gas in the Andromeda galaxy

    Authors: Ch. Nieten (1), N. Neininger (1,2,3), M. Guelin (3), H. Ungerechts
    (4), R. Lucas (3), E. M. Berkhuijsen (1), R. Beck (1), R. Wielebinski (1)
    ((1) MPI fuer Radioastronomie, Bonn, Germany, (2) Radioastronomisches
    Institut, Univ. Bonn, Germany, (3) IRAM, Grenoble, France, (4) IRAM,
    Granada,
    Spain)

    Comments: 21 pages, 16 figures. Accepted for publication in A&A
    \\
    We present a new 12CO(J=1-0)-line survey of the Andromeda galaxy, M31,
    covering the bright disk with the highest resolution to date (85 pc along
    the
    major axis), observed On-the-Fly (in italics) with the IRAM 30-m telescope.
    We
    discuss the distribution of the CO emission and compare it with the
    distributions of HI and emission from cold dust traced at 175mum. Our main
    results are: 1. Most of the CO emission comes from the radial range R=3-16
    kpc,
    but peaks near R=10 kpc. The emission is con- centrated in narrow, arm-like
    filaments defining two spiral arms with pitch angles of 7d-8d. The average
    arm-interarm brightness ratio along the western arms reaches 20 compared to
    4
    for HI. 2. For a constant conversion factor Xco, the molecular fraction of
    the
    neutral gas is enhanced in the arms and decreases radially. The apparent
    gas-to-dust ratios N(HI)/I175 and (N(HI)+2N(H2))/I175 increase by a factor
    of
    20 between the centre and R=14 kpc, whereas the ratio 2N(H2)/I175 only
    increases by a factor of 4. Implications of these gradients are discussed.
    In
    the range R=8-14 kpc total gas and cold dust are well correlated; molecular
    gas
    is better correlated with cold dust than atomic gas.

    \\ ( http://arXiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512563 , 946kb)


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