COMPLEX HYDROCARBON CHEMISTRY IN INTERSTELLAR AND SOLAR SYSTEM ICES REVEALED: A COMBINED INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY AND REFLECTRON TIME-OF-FLIGHT MASS SPECTROMETRY ANALYSIS OF ETHANE (C2H6) AND D6-ETHANE (C2D6) ICES EXPOSED TO IONIZING RADIATION

Abstract

ABSTRACT The irradiation of pure ethane (C2H6/C2D6) ices at 5.5 K, under ultrahigh vacuum conditions was conducted to investigate the formation of complex hydrocarbons via interaction with energetic electrons simulating the secondary electrons produced in the track of galactic cosmic rays. The chemical modifications of the ices were monitored in situ using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and during temperature-programmed desorption via mass spectrometry exploiting a quadrupole mass spectrometer with electron impact ionization (EI-QMS) as well as a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer coupled to a photoionization source (PI-ReTOF-MS). FTIR confirmed previous ethane studies by detecting six molecules: methane (CH4), acetylene (C2H2), ethylene (C2H4), the ethyl radical (C2H5), 1-butene (C4H8), and n-butane (C4H10). However, the TPD phase, along with EI-QMS, and most importantly, PI-ReTOF-MS, revealed the formation of at least 23 hydrocarbons, many for the first time in ethane ice, which can be arranged in four groups with an increasing carbon-to-hydrogen ratio: C n H2n+2 (n = 3, 4, 6, 8, 10), C n H2n (n = 3–10), (n = 3–10), and (n = 4–6). The processing of simple ethane ices is relevant to the hydrocarbon chemistry in the interstellar medium, as ethane has been shown to be a major product of methane, as well as in the outer solar system. These data reveal that the processing of ethane ices can synthesize several key hydrocarbons such as C3H4 and C4H6 isomers, which ha­ve been found to synthesize polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons like indene (C9H8) and naphtha­lene (C10H8) in the ISM and in hydrocarbon-rich atmospheres of planets and their moons such as Titan.