New kinetic data and product distributions have been obtained using the experimental CRESU technique combined with a theoretical analysis of the reaction mechanism. The astrophysical implications of fast CH3O and CH2OH formation are discussed.

Chemical kinetics of neutral-neutral gas-phase reactions at ultralow temperatures is a fascinating research subject with important implications on the chemistry of complex organic molecules in the interstellar medium (T∼10-100K). Scarce kinetic information is currently available for this kind of reactions at T<200 K. In this work we use the CRESU (, which means Reaction Kinetics in a Uniform Supersonic Flow) technique to measure for the first time the rate coefficients () of the gas-phase OH+HCO reaction between 22 and 107 K. values greatly increase from 2.1×10 cm s at 107 K to 1.2×10 cm s at 22 K. This is also confirmed by quasi-classical trajectories (QCT) at collision energies down to 0.1 meV performed using a new full dimension and potential energy surface, recently developed which generates highly accurate potential and includes long range dipole-dipole interactions. QCT calculations indicate that at low temperatures HCO is the exclusive product for the OH+HCO reaction. In order to revisit the chemistry of HCO in cold dense clouds, is reasonably extrapolated from the experimental results at 10K (2.6×10 cm s). The modeled abundances of HCO are in agreement with the observations in cold dark clouds for an evolving time of 10-10 yrs. The different sources of production of HCO are presented and the uncertainties in the chemical networks discussed. This reaction can be expected to be a competitive process in the chemistry of prestellar cores. The present reaction is shown to account for a few percent of the total HCO production rate. Extensions to photodissociation regions and diffuse clouds environments are also commented.

Ethanol, CHCHOH, has been unveiled in the interstellar medium (ISM) by radioastronomy and it is thought to be released into the gas phase after the warm-up phase of the grain surface, where it is formed. Once in the gas phase, it can be destroyed by different reactions with atomic and radical species, such as hydroxyl (OH) radicals. The knowledge of the rate coefficients of all these processes at temperatures of the ISM is essential in the accurate interpretation of the observed abundances. In this work, we have determined the rate coefficient for the reaction of OH with CHCHOH (k(T)) between 21 and 107 K by employing the pulsed and continuous CRESU (Cinétique de Réaction en Ecoulement Supersonique Uniforme, which means Reaction Kinetics in a Uniform Supersonic Flow) technique. The pulsed laser photolysis technique was used for generating OH radicals, whose time evolution was monitored by laser induced fluorescence. An increase of approximately 4 times was observed for k(21 K) with respect to k(107 K). With respect to k(300 K), the OH-reactivity at 21 K is enhanced by two orders of magnitude. The obtained T-expression in the investigated temperature range is k(T) = (2.1 ± 0.5) × 10 (T/300 K) cm molecule s. In addition, the pressure dependence of k(T) has been investigated at several temperatures between 21 K and 90 K. No pressure dependence of k(T) was observed in the investigated ranges. This may imply that this reaction is purely bimolecular or that the high-pressure limit is reached at the lowest total pressure experimentally accessible in our system. From our results, k(T) at usual IS temperatures (∼10-100 K) is confirmed to be very fast. Typical rate coefficients can be considered to range within about 4 × 10 cm molecule s at 100 K and around 1 × 10 cm molecule s at 20 K. The extrapolation of k at the lowest temperatures of the dense molecular clouds of ISM is also discussed in this paper.

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