Advancing Interstellar Aromatic and Carbon-Based Chemistry: An Integrated Experimental, Theoretical, and Astronomical Approach

碳是一种非常通用的化学元素，因为它能够形成长链和环（即，连环作用）。这一特性导致了自然界中有机化合物以及生物学本身的不可思议的多样性。虽然大的碳基分子，如多环芳烃（PAHs）和富勒烯在太空中无处不在，但最近在附近的冷分子云中发现了一个意想不到的丰富的小的链状碳结构储层。该团队将结合实验室和理论工作（与敏感的无线电观测相协调）来获得新的光谱，以识别新的有机（环状或非环状）分子，确定五碳环和六碳环（有机化学的组成部分）形成并最终演变成多环芳烃和更复杂的结构的化学途径。实验室工作将利用设备升级以及改进的分析/诊断工具和算法，其中许多应用于天文学以外的领域。这项工作将为本科生和研究生提供研究经验，并促进两名博士后的职业发展。通过实验室测量、理论计算和天文观测等紧密协调的项目，研究团队将努力更深入地了解复杂的碳化学，包括形成小芳环的特定途径，以及随后导致更大、更复杂的碳链酸盐的反应。拟议中的研究将具有广泛的意义，从无处不在的红外线和沿着许多不同视线看到的光学特征的来源，到恒星和行星的形成。拟议的实验室研究将产生快速、公正和强大的诊断工具，以从头分析复杂的混合物，并提供基本反应及其产物种类的关键测试。两者都将在其直接的天体化学应用之外的广泛科学学科中具有适用性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Carbon is an extraordinarily versatile chemical element due to its ability to form long chains and rings (i.e., catenation). This attribute is responsible for the incredible variety of organic compounds in nature as well as biology itself. While large carbon-based molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and fullerenes are ubiquitous in space, an unexpectedly rich reservoir of smaller catenated carbon structures was recently discovered in nearby cold molecular clouds. The team will conduct a combined laboratory and theoretical effort (in coordination with sensitive radio observations) to obtain new spectra to identify new organic (ringed or otherwise) molecules, determine the chemical pathways by which five- and six-Carbon rings – building blocks of organic chemistry - form and eventually evolve into PAHs and more complicated structures. Laboratory work will take advantage of equipment upgrades as well as improved analysis/diagnostic tools and algorithms, many of which with applications outside of astronomy. This work will provide research experience for undergraduate and graduate students as well advancing the careers of two postdocs.Through a closely coordinated program of laboratory measurements, theoretical calculations, and astronomical observations, the research team will strive for a much deeper understanding of complex carbon chemistry, including the specific pathways that form small aromatic rings and the subsequent reactions that lead to much larger and complicated carbon catenates. The proposed research will have wide ranging implications, from the sources of the ubiquitous infrared and optical features seen along many different lines of sight, to the formation of stars and planets. The proposed laboratory studies will result in rapid, unbiased, and robust diagnostic tools to analyze complex mixtures de novo and provide critical tests of fundamental reactions and their product species. Both will have applicability in a wide range of scientific disciplines beyond their immediate astrochemical applications.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.