Isomer Differentiation of Trapped CH Using Low-Energy Collisions and Visible/VUV Photons.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are major species in astrophysical environments, and this motivates their study in samples of astrochemical interest such as meteorites and laboratory analogues of stardust. Molecular analyses of carbonaceous matter in these samples show a dominant peak at / = 202.078 corresponding to CH.

Characterization of large carbonaceous molecules in cosmic dust analogues and meteorites.

We present a new experimental setup called AROMA (The Aromatic Research of Organics with Molecular Analyzer) based on the use of laser mass spectrometry techniques. We demonstrate the potential of AROMA for the analysis of meteoritic samples and cosmic dust analogues. Tens of peaks are identified in the mass spectra with notable discrepancies across the different samples.