Proton-induced collision dynamics on potential prebiotic sulfur species

Abstract

The formation of the building blocks of life and how they could survive under harsh astrophysical environments remains an open question of prebiotic chemistry. Effectively, ion bombardments or intense UV radiation may drive the destruction of prebiotic compounds. The possible role of sulfur in such processes is addressed here for the first time, by comparing directly proton-induced charge transfer for sulfur containing molecules and that for related COMs. The proton collision on mercaptoacetonitrile HSCH₂CN conformers has thus been investigated theoretically in a wide impact energy range modelling various astrophysical environments and compared to related COMs, namely HCN oligomers, in order to exhibit qualitative tendencies.