Interstellar protonated molecular species

Abstract

Majority of the known interstellar cations are protonated species believed to be the natural precursors for their corresponding neutral analogues formed via the dissociative recombination process. The protonation of a neutral species can occur in more than one position on the molecular structure thus resulting in more than one proton binding energy value and different protonated species for the same neutral species. In the present work, ab initio quantum calculations are employed to calculate accurate proton binding energies for over 100 neutral interstellar molecules of which majority of the neutral molecules are protonated in more than one position. From the results, protonated species resulting from a high proton binding energy prefers to remain protonated rather than transferring a proton and returning to its neutral form as compared to its analogue that gives rise to a lower proton binding energy (PBE) from the same neutral species. For two protonated species resulting from the same neutral molecule, the one that results in a higher PBE is more stable as compared to its counterpart that is responsible for the lower PBE for the same neutral species. Here, the most stable species are highlighted for all the systems considered.