Astrochemistry

A Twist On The Reaction Of The CN Radical With Methylamine In The Interstellar Medium

By Keith Cowing
physics.chem-ph
July 15, 2020
Filed under
A Twist On The Reaction Of The CN Radical With Methylamine In The Interstellar Medium
Reaction mechanism for the attack of CN to the N moiety of methylamine in red and for the abstraction of H from the methyl group by CN in blue. “HEAT-like” energies augmented by anharmonic ZPE corrections.

Despite the fact that the majority of current models assume that interstellar complex organic molecules (iCOMs) are formed on dust-grain surfaces, there is some evidence that neutral gas-phase reactions play an important role.

In this paper, we investigate the reaction occurring in the gas phase between methylamine (CH3NH2) and the cyano (CN) radical, for which only fragmentary and/or inaccurate results have been reported to date. This case study allows us to point out the pivotal importance of employing quantum-chemical calculations at the state of the art. Since the two major products of the CH3NH2 + CN reaction, namely the CH3NH and CH2NH2 radicals, have not been spectroscopically characterized yet, some effort has been made for filling this gap.

A twist on the reaction of the CN radical with methylamine in the interstellar medium: new hints from a state-of-the-art quantum-chemical study

C. Puzzarini, Z. Salta, N. Tasinato, J. Lupi, C. Cavallotti, V. Barone
Comments: 14 pages, 6 figures, MNRAS in press
Subjects: Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph); Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa1652
Cite as: arXiv:2007.07657 [physics.chem-ph] (or arXiv:2007.07657v1 [physics.chem-ph] for this version)
Submission history
From: Cristina Puzzarini
[v1] Wed, 15 Jul 2020 12:34:53 UTC (2,131 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.07657
Astrobiology, Astrochemistry

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