Simulation of interstellar aromatic hydrocarbons using ion cyclotron resonance. Preliminary results

Abstract

Using laser microprobe and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass spectrometry, we have produced and trapped aromatic species which might well be laboratory analogues of interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These species are produced by laser ablation of a sample of pyrolysed coronene. They are large (up to two hundred carbon atoms) and can be highly dehydrogenated upon irradiation. More or less condensed forms have also been identified. Although still preliminary, these results open a new field of investigation: the study of the photophysics and chemistry of these large reactive species in isolation conditions close to those found in interestellar space. This will be the first objective of the PIRENEA experiment, a FTICRMS set-up devoted to astrophysics. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.