Astrochemistry from a chemist’s perspective

Séminaire IPAG de Nadia Baluccani (Perugia University), jeudi 16 janvier 2014 à 11h00, IPAG seminar room

Complex polyatomic molecules have been observed in a wide variety of extraterrestrial objects (including interstellar clouds, comets and planetary atmospheres) where the physical conditions vary widely. A thorough characterization of the chemical evolution of those objects relies on a multi-disciplinary approach : 1) observations allow us to identify the molecules and their number densities as they currently are ; 2) the chemistry which lies behind their formation starting from atoms and simple molecules is accounted for by complex reaction networks ; 3) for a realistic modeling of such networks, a number of experimental parameters are needed and, therefore, the relevant molecular processes should be fully characterized in laboratory experiments. A survey of the available literature reveals, however, that much information is still lacking if it is true that only a small percentage of the elementary reactions considered in the models have been characterized in laboratory experiments. New experimental approaches to characterize the relevant elementary reactions in the laboratory are presented and the implications of the results are discussed.