The commissioning of the ALMA array and the next generation of space telescopes heralds the dawn of a new age of Astronomy, in which the role of chemistry in the interstellar medium and in star and planet formation may be quantified. A vital part of these studies will be to determine the molecular complexity in these seemingly hostile regions and explore how molecules are synthesised and survive. The current hypothesis is that many of these species are formed within the ice mantles on interstellar dust grains with irradiation by UV light or cosmic rays stimulating chemical reactions. However, such irradiation releases many secondary electrons which may themselves induce chemistry. In this article we discuss the potential role of such electron induced chemistry and demonstrate, through some simple experiments, the rich molecular synthesis that this may lead to.

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Electron impact ionization and ionic fragmentation of tetrahydrofuran molecules in the gas phase were studied in the energy range from ionization threshold up to 150 eV using the technique of mass spectrometry. The cation mass spectra, ionization and ionic fragmentation efficiencies were measured over this energy range. Well-resolved mass peaks were detected in the mass range 10-72 amu and assigned to corresponding ionic molecular fragments. The most abundant cation in the mass spectra is at 42 amu. Appearance energies of selected ionic fragments were also determined. Possible ionic fragmentation processes are discussed.

A detailed experimental investigation of electron induced anion production in acetylene, C2H2, in the energy range between 1 and 90 eV is presented. The anions are formed by two processes in this energy range: dissociative electron attachment (DEA) and dipolar dissociation (DD). DEA in C2H2 is found to lead to the formation of H(-) and C2(-)/C2H(-) through excitation of resonances in the electron energy range 1-15 eV. These anionic fragments are formed with super thermal kinetic energy and reveal no anisotropy in the angular distributions. DD in C2H2 leads to the formation of H(-), C(-)/CH(-) and C2(-)/C2H(-) with threshold energies of 15.7, 20.0 and 16.5 eV respectively. The measured anion yields have been used to calculate anion production rates for H(-), C(-)/CH(-) and C2(-)/C2H(-) in Titan's ionosphere.

We present a detailed experimental investigation of anion production in electron collisions with ethylene, C 2 H 4 . The investigated energy range is between 0 and 90 eV where anions are formed by two processes, in the low energy regime by dissociative electron attachment (DEA) and at higher energy by dipolar dissociation (DD). These electron induced processes are studied in two different experimental apparatus using two different mass spectrometry techniques. One is a time of flight spectrometer operating with velocity slice imaging technique and the other is a two sector field mass spectrometer. The former allows efficient collection of ions compared to standard mass spectrometers, while the latter provides high mass resolution. Eight fragment anions formed via DEA in the electron energy range between 5 and 17 eV have been detected; two fragments have not reported as DEA products in any previous studies. DD in C 2 H 4 leads to the formation of the same anions as found in the case of DEA. Quantum chemical calculations have been carried out to determine the thermochemical thresholds of anion formation.