Lecture
Reedijk Symposium 2024: Surface astrochemistry
- Date
- Friday 22 November 2024
- Time
- Location
-
Lecture Hall
Einsteinweg 57
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- C1
Abstract
The interstellar medium is far from empty, but consists of dust and gas with a surprisingly rich chemistry. Despite its low temperature and low pressure, many new molecules can form and these molecules play an important role in the formation of new stars and planets. The gas is, in fact, a low-energy plasma with a significant fraction of the gas in atomic form.
Surface reactions on interstellar dust particles play an important role. Molecules like water, methanol, carbon dioxide, and methane form on the dust surfaces, building up ice layers. In the past years, research has focused on a better understanding of these surface reactions. This was initially on the formation of small molecules, but recently also larger molecules like glycolaldehyde and glycine, the simplest amino acid, were considered. Both molecules can form at 10 K without the presence of light, contrary to what was initially thought. I will discuss how we study these ice layers in the laboratory, by simulations, and models and what this tells us about surface chemistry in general.
Biography
Prof. dr. Herma Cuppen is a professor in computational chemistry at the Radboud University and professor by special appointment at the University of Amsterdam. She applies simulation techniques as a computational microscope to gain insight into processes in molecular solids at a molecular level and relates their results to experimental findings. She hence works with simulation techniques that allow for the simulation of experimental observables. She is the recipient of several prestige grants that involve the simulations of interstellar ices and molecular crystals at a molecular level, including an ERC Starting Grant and a VIDI grant. She is part of the board of the Computational and Theoretical Chemistry section of the KNCV and Chemistry Table of NWO.