Non-Statistical Oligopeptide Fragmentation by IR Photons with λ=16–18 μm

Abstract

Abstract In this article we analyse the vibration excitation and following dissociation of protonated oligopeptide molecules induced by IR photons with λ=16–18 μm. The analysis is based on our previous works in which we considered a specific non-statistical dissociation process in organic molecules containing substructures consisting of chained identical diatomic dipoles such as (CH2)n. Such dipole chains can serve as IR antennas for external radiation in the IR frequency range. The acquired vibration energy accumulated in IR antennas can be large enough to dissociate molecules within a femtosecond time interval by a non-statistical process, which is driven by a radiationless low-energy transport mechanism inside the peptide molecules. We point out in this article that the suggested IR-induced dissociation mechanism can be applied to obtain sequence information of protonated oligopeptides.