title: ACCURATE SPECTROSCOPIC CHARACTERIZATION OF PROTONATED OXIRANE: A POTENTIAL PREBIOTIC SPECIES IN TITAN'S ATMOSPHERE.
abstract: An accurate spectroscopic characterization of protonated oxirane has been carried out by means of state-of-the-art computational methods and approaches. The calculated spectroscopic parameters from our recent computational investigation of oxirane together with the corresponding experimental data available were used to assess the accuracy of our predicted rotational and IR spectra of protonated oxirane. We found an accuracy of about 10 cm-1for vibrational transitions (fundamentals as well as overtones and combination bands) and, in relative terms, of 0.1% for rotational transitions. We are therefore confident that the spectroscopic data provided herein are a valuable support for the detection of protonated oxirane not only in Titan's atmosphere but also in the interstellar medium.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Chimica "Giacomo Ciamician," Università di Bologna, Via Selmi 2, I-40126 Bologna, Italy; cristina.puzzarini@unibo.it.
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Puzzarini
authors.affiliation: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
authors.forename: Ashraf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ali
authors.affiliation: Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa, Italy ; Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, Istituto di Chimica dei Composti OrganoMetallici (ICCOM-CNR), UOS di Pisa, Area della Ricerca CNR, Via G. Moruzzi 1, I-56124 Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Malgorzata
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Biczysko
authors.affiliation: Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Vincenzo
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Barone
keywords: ISM: molecules; line: identification; methods: data analysis; molecular data