Laboratory Measurements of N2 reacting with H3+ isotopologues Dmitry Ivanov 1 , C. Bu 1 , P.-M. Hillenbrand 2 , L.W. Isberner 2 , D. Schury 1 , X. Urbain 3 and D.W. Savin 1† 1 Columbia Astrophysics Laboratory, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA 2 I. Physikalisches Institut, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, 35392 Gießen, Germany 3 Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences, Université catholique de Louvain, B-1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium The properties of prestellar cores and the outer midplane of protoplanetary discs can be inferred using observations of deuterated molecules [1, 2]. In particular, the N2D+-to-N2H+ abundance ratio is a commonly used diagnostic, the accuracy of which requires an accurate understanding of the underlying chemical processes forming and destroying these species. Here, we used a dual-source, ion-neutral, merged-fast-beams apparatus [3, 4] to investigate the reaction N2 + D3 + → N2D+ + D2. Fast beams of N2 + and D3 + were produced in duoplasmatron sources. The N2 + was neutralized to the X1Σ+ g ground electronic state by electron capture from N2 in a gas cell at room temperature. The D3 + was then electrostatically merged onto the neutral beam. N2D+ daughter products were detected using an electrostatic energy analyzer. Our approach enables us to measure the integral cross section for the ion-molecular reaction and thereby determine thermal rate coefficients, both to an accuracy of ~ 20%. These results can be used in astrochemical models to describe the processes taking place at dense cold regions found in prestellar cores and protoplanetary disks. This work was supported, in part, by a grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation Division of Astronomical Sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Grants Program. References 1. Aikawa Y. et al. 2018 Astrophys. J. 885 119
2. Sipilä O. and Caselli P. 2018 Astron. Astrophys. 615 A15 3. O’Connor A et al. 2015 Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser. 219 6 4. Hillenbrand P-M. et al. 2019 Astrophys. J. 877 38.
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