2012/09/12 by A. Occhiogrosso, S. Viti, Michael D. Ward +2 · 13 citations
Chemistry · Physics and Astronomy · #Adsorption #Advanced Chemical Physics Studies #Astrophysics #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Catalysis #Chemical physics #Chemistry #Desorption #Ethylene #Ethylene oxide #Interstellar medium #Molecular Spectroscopy and Structure #Molecule #Organic chemistry #Oxide #Oxygen #Phase (matter) #Physical chemistry #Physics #Thermal desorption #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.22112.x
published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 427(3), 2450-2456 (Oxford University Press) · 8 pages, 3 figures, 6 tables. Accepted by MNRAS
arxiv created 2012/09/12 · openalex publication_date 2012/11/20 · arxiv updated 2015/06/11 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Despite its potential reactivity due to ring strain, ethylene oxide (c-C2H4O) is a complex molecule that seems to be stable under the physical conditions of an interstellar dense core; indeed, it has been detected towards several high-mass star-forming regions with a column density of the order of 1013 cm−2. To date, its observational abundances cannot be reproduced by chemical models and this may be due to the significant contribution played by its chemistry on grain surfaces. Recently, Ward & Price have performed experiments in order to investigate the surface formation of ethylene oxide starting with oxygen atoms and ethylene ice as reactants. We present a chemical model which includes the most recent experimental results from Ward & Price on the formation of c-C2H4O. We study the influence of the physical parameters of dense cores on the abundances of c-C2H4O. We verify that ethylene oxide can indeed be formed during the cold phase (when the interstellar medium dense cores are formed), via addition of an oxygen atom across the C=C double bond of the ethylene molecule, and released by thermal desorption during the hot core phase. A qualitative comparison between our theoretical results and those from the observations shows that we are able to reproduce the abundances of ethylene oxide towards high-mass star-forming regions.