SIMULATION OF INTERSTELLAR AROMATIC-HYDROCARBONS USING ION-CYCLOTRON RESONANCE - PRELIMINARY-RESULTS

Using laser microprobe and Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance ( FTICR) mass spectrometry, we have produced and trapped aromatic specie s which might well be laboratory analogues of interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. These species are produced by laser ablation of a sample of pyrolysed coronene, They are large (up to two hundred car bon atoms) and can be highly dehydrogenated upon irradiation. More or less condensed forms have also been identified, Although still prelimi nary, these results open a new field of investigation: the study of th e photophysics and chemistry of these large reactive species in isolat ion conditions close to those found in interstellar space, This will b e the first objective of the PIRENEA experiment, a FTICRMS set-up devo ted to astrophysics. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.