Dissociative Electron Attachment to DNA Bases Near Absolute Zero Temperature: Freezing Dissociation Intermediates

Abstract

Cold dissociation: Thymine and adenine are embedded within extremely cold superfluid 4He droplets (see picture) and exposed to electrons with energies up to 15 eV. The only significant dissociative attachment channel is formation of a dehydrogenated nucleobase anion. This differs dramatically from the many different anionic products observed with isolated molecules at 400 K.