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Laboratory studies play a crucial role in understanding the chemical nature of the interstellar medium (ISM), but the disconnect between experimental timescales and the timescales of reactions in space can make a direct comparison between observations, laboratory, and model results difficult. Here we study the survival of reactive fragments of the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) coronene, where individual C atoms have been knocked out of the molecules in hard collisions with He atoms at stellar wind and supernova shockwave velocities. Ionic fragments are stored in the DESIREE cryogenic ion-beam storage ring where we investigate their decay for up to one second. After 10 ms the initially hot stored ions have cooled enough so that spontaneous dissociation no longer takes place at a measurable rate; a majority of the fragments remain intact and will continue to do so indefinitely in isolation. Our findings show that defective PAHs formed in energetic collisions with heavy particles may survive at thermal equilibrium in the interstellar medium indefinitely, and could play an important role in the chemistry in there, due to their increased reactivity compared to intact or photo-fragmented PAHs., Ion storage rings allow reactions to be studied over orders of magnitude in time, bridging the gap between typical experimental and astronomical timescales. Here the authors observe that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon fragments produced upon collision with He atoms at velocities typical of stellar winds and supernova shockwaves remain intact up to second timescales, thus may play an important role in interstellar chemistry.

Neon cluster ions Ne$_s^+$ grown in pre-ionized, mass-to-charge selected helium nanodroplets (HNDs) reveal a strong enrichment of the heavy isotope $^{22}$Ne that depends on cluster size s and the experimental conditions. For small sizes the enrichment is much larger than previously reported for bare neon clusters grown in nozzle expansions and subsequently ionized. The enrichment is traced to the massive evaporation of neon atoms in a collision cell that is used to strip helium from the HNDs. We derive a relation between the enrichment of $^{22}$Ne in the cluster ion and its corresponding depletion factor $F$ in the vapor phase. The value thus found for $F$ is in excellent agreement with a theoretical expression that relates isotopic fractionation in two-phase equilibria of atomic gases to the Debye temperature. Furthermore, the difference in zero-point energies between the two isotopes computed from F agrees reasonably well with theoretical studies of neon cluster ions that include nuclear quantum effects in the harmonic approximation. Another fitting parameter provides an estimate for the size s$_i$ of the precursor of the observed Ne$_s^+$. The value is in satisfactory agreement with the size estimated by modeling the growth of Ne$_s^+$, and with lower and upper limits deduced from other experimental data. On the other hand, neon clusters grown in neutral HNDs that are subsequently ionized by electron bombardment exhibit no statistically significant isotope enrichment at all. The finding suggests that the extent of ionization-induced dissociation of clusters embedded in HNDs is considerably smaller than for bare clusters., 14 pages, 5 figures, supplementary material

High-resolution mass spectra of helium droplets doped with gold and ionized by electrons reveal He$_n$Au$^+$ cluster ions. Additional doping with heavy noble gases results in NenAu+, Ar$_n$Au$^+$, Kr$_n$Au$^+$, and Xe$_n$Au$^+$ cluster ions. The high stability predicted for covalently bonded Ar$_2$Au$^+$, Kr$_2$Au$^+$, and Xe$_2$Au$^+$ is reflected in their relatively high abundance. Surprisingly, the abundance of Ne$_2$Au$^+$ which is predicted to have zero covalent bonding character and no enhanced stability features a local maximum, too. The predicted size and structure of complete solvation shells surrounding ions with essentially non-directional bonding depends primarily on the ratio $\sigma$* of the ion-ligand $versus$ the ligand-ligand distance. For Au$^+$ solvated in helium and neon the ratio $\sigma$* is slightly below 1, favoring icosahedral packing in agreement with a maximum observed in the corresponding abundance distributions at $n$ = 12. He$_n$Au$^+$ appears to adopt two additional solvation shells of $I_h$ symmetry, containing 20 and 12 atoms, respectively. For Ar$_n$Au$^+$, with $\sigma$* $\approx$ 0.67, one would expect a solvation shell of octahedral symmetry, in agreement with an enhanced ion abundance at $n$ = 6. Another anomaly in the ion abundance at Ar$_9$Au$^+$ matches a local maximum in its computed dissociation energy.

The detection of multiply charged helium droplet anions is reported for the first time. By ionizing droplets of superfluid helium with low energy electrons (up to 25 eV), it was possible to produce droplets containing up to five negative charges, which remain intact on the timescale of the experiment. The appearance sizes for different charge states are determined and are found to be orders of magnitude larger than for the equivalent cationic droplets, starting at 4 million He atoms for dianions. Droplets with He*− as charge carriers show signs of being metastable, but this effect is quenched by the pickup of water molecules., Charged droplets: The detection of multiply charged helium droplet anions is reported for the first time. By ionizing droplets of superfluid helium with low energy electrons (up to 25 eV), it was possible to produce droplets containing up to five negative charges, which remain intact on the timescale of the experiment.

53 pags., 12 figs., 4 tabs., We review the solvation of atomic, molecular or cluster ions in HNDs. After briefly discussing the properties of snowballs in bulk helium we consider experimental conditions for the efficient synthesis of charged, doped HNDs. We show that the cluster ions observed in conventional mass spectrometers originate from fission of highly charged HNDs. The ionization threshold of HNDs doped with alkalis reveals the minimum cluster size required for full immersion. The abundance distributions of He (Formula presented.) X (Formula presented.) ions frequently reveal local anomalies or magic numbers. We demonstrate that the abundance is approximately proportional to the evaporation energy. Observed and calculated magic numbers will be compiled, including data for ions solvated in molecular hydrogen. Alternative methods to forming He (Formula presented.) X (Formula presented.) that do not employ HNDs will be summarized. Electronic excitation spectra of C (Formula presented.) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon ions reveal the properties of the helium adsorption layer in quantitative detail. Next we discuss theoretical efforts to describe the interaction between ions and helium. We close with summarizing the size dependence of physical quantities computed for atomic alkali and alkaline earth cations in helium, such as binding energy, superfluid fraction, structural order, radial density profiles, and the existence of first and higher solvation shells., This work was supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF (Project Nos. P31149 and P30355), the European Regional Development Fund (EFRE K-Regio FAENOMENAL, Project No. EFRE 2016- 4), the Swedish Research Council (Contract No. 2016-06625), and the MICINN with Grants No. FIS2017-83157-P and FIS2017-84391-C2-2-P

In the present work we observe that helium nanodroplets colliding with surfaces can exhibit splashing in a way that is analogous to classical liquids. We use transmission electron microscopy and mass spectrometry to demonstrate that neutral and ionic dopants embedded in the droplets are efficiently backscattered in such events. High abundances of weakly bound He-tagged ions of both polarities indicate a gentle extraction mechanism of these ions from the droplets upon collision with a solid surface. This backscattering process is observed for dopant particles with masses up to 400 kilodaltons, indicating an unexpected mechanism that effectively lowers deposition rates of nanoparticles formed in helium droplets.

The European physical journal / D 75(5), 152 (2021). doi:10.1140/epjd/s10053-021-00155-y, This roadmap article highlights recent advances, challenges and future prospects in studies of the dynamics of molecules and clusters in the gas phase. It comprises nineteen contributions by scientists with leading expertise in complementary experimental and theoretical techniques to probe the dynamics on timescales spanning twenty order of magnitudes, from attoseconds to minutes and beyond, and for systems ranging in complexity from the smallest (diatomic) molecules to clusters and nanoparticles. Combining some of these techniques opens up new avenues to unravel hitherto unexplored reaction pathways and mechanisms, and to establish their significance in, e.g. radiotherapy and radiation damage on the nanoscale, astrophysics, astrochemistry and atmospheric science., Published by Springer, Heidelberg

Abstract Cationic clusters of gold, containing up to 8 atoms, and decorated with molecular hydrogen and water, were investigated with mass spectrometry. The clusters were grown as neutrals in superfluid helium nanodroplets that were ionized by electron impact. The resulting gas phase cluster cations exhibit magic sizes corresponding to the number of H2 molecules that form the first solvation layer, consistent with previous findings. The presence of water is found to efficiently displace hydrogen, one H2 molecule for each H2O. Our calculations show that the binding energy of water to the charged gold clusters is about twice as large as for hydrogen, though this depends on the charge of the clusters. This suggests that residual water could reduce the efficiency for metal particles to chemically store hydrogen gas, a promising technique for hydrogen fuel storage. Graphical abstract

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We report the mass spectrometric detection of positive and negative cluster ions of gold atoms formed by the pickup of gold by helium nanodroplets (HNDs) near zero K and subsequent exposure to electron impact. Both singly and doubly charged positive cluster ions were observed. Ionization is initiated by the helium ions He+ and He*−, metastable helium atoms He* as well as electron attachment. We focus on the size distributions of the ions, electron energy dependence of ion yield, patterns of stability and the presence of “magic” clusters. As reported previously by others using a variety of other methodologies, a clear oscillation in the intensity of (Au)n+/- is seen, especially for n

We have measured the threshold center-of-mass kinetic energy for knocking out a single carbon atom from C 60 − in collisions with He. Combining this experimental result with classical molecular dynamics simulations, we determine a semi-empirical value of 24.1 ± 0.5 eV for the threshold displacement energy, the energy needed to remove a single carbon atom from the C60 cage. We report the first observation of an endohedral complex with an odd number of carbon atoms, He@C 59 − , and discuss its formation and decay mechanisms.

Adducts formed between small gold cluster cations and helium atoms are reported for the first time. These binary ions, Aun+Hem, were produced by electron ionization of helium nanodroplets doped with neutral gold clusters and were detected using mass spectrometry. For a given value of n, the distribution of ions as a function of the number of added helium atoms, m, has been recorded. Peaks with anomalously high intensities, corresponding to so-called magic number ions, are identified and interpreted in terms of the geometric structures of the underlying Aun+ ions. These features can be accounted for by planar structures for Aun+ ions with n ≤ 7, with the addition of helium having no significant effect on the structures of the underlying gold cluster ions. According to ion mobility studies and some theoretical predictions, a 3-D structure is expected for Au8+. However, the findings for Au8+ in this work are more consistent with a planar structure.

We have studied complexes of gold atoms and imidazole (C$_3$N$_2$H$_4$, abbreviated Im) produced in helium nanodroplets. Following the ionization of the doped droplets we detect a broad range of different Au$_m$Im$_n^+$ complexes, however we find that for specific values of $m$ certain $n$ are "magic" and thus particularly abundant. Our density functional theory calculations indicate that these abundant clusters sizes are partially the result of particularly stable complexes, e.g. AuIm$_2^+$, and partially due to a transition in fragmentation patterns from the loss of neutral imidazole molecules for large systems to the loss of neutral gold atoms for smaller systems., 7 pages, 9 figures, published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics

The addition of small impurities, such as a single proton charge carrier, in noble gas clusters has recently been shown to have considerable effects on their geometries and stabilities. Here we report on a mass spectrometric study of cationic clusters of N$_2$ molecules and the effects that adding hydrogen, in the form of D$_2$, has on the systems. Protonated nitrogen clusters formed by the breakup of D$_2$ are shown to have similar behaviors as protonated rare gas clusters. For larger systems consisting of different mixtures of intact N$_2$ and D$_2$, the different molecular species are found to sometimes be interchangeable with regards to magic numbers. This is especially true for the (N$_2$)$_n$(D$_2$)$_m$D$^+$ systems with $n+m=17$, which is particularly abundant for all measured combinations of $n$ and $m$., Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, published in The Journal of Chemical Physics

An overview of recent experimental results of studies of negative atomic and molecular ions in the Double ElectroStatic Ion-Ring ExpEriment, DESIREE is given. Metastable level lifetimes in atomic negative ions have been measured by time-dependent laser photodetachment. Rotational relaxation of diatomic anions is studied by near-threshold photodetachment. Spontaneous decays of small metal cluster anions by electron emission and fragmentation is studied with decay-channel specificity. Finally, mutual neutralisation of pairs of negative and positive ions has been investigated with initial and final state selectivity.

9 pags., 7 figs., 1 tab. -- Open Access funded by Creative Commons Atribution Licence 3.0. -- This article is part of the themed collection: 2018 PCCP HOT Articles, We report on a combined experimental and theoretical study of Li+ ions solvated by up to 50 He atoms. The experiments show clear enhanced abundances associated with HenLi+ clusters where n = 2, 6, 8, and 14. We find that classical methods, e.g. basin-hopping (BH), give results that qualitatively agree with quantum mechanical methods such as path integral Monte Carlo, diffusion Monte Carlo and quantum free energy, regarding both energies and the solvation structures that are formed. The theory identifies particularly stable structures for n = 4, 6 and 8 which line up with some of the most abundant features in the experiments., This work has been funded by the MINECO with Grants FIS2014-51993-P, FIS2016-79596-P, FIS2017-84391-C2-2-P and FIS2017-83157-P, the Austrian Science Fund FWF (projects P26635 and W1259), and the Swedish Research Council (Contract No. 2016-06625). JOZ would like to thank Programa Operativo de Empleo Juvenil 2014–2020 of Fondo Social Europeo.

We report on the production and study of stable, highly charged droplets of superfluid helium. Using a novel experimental setup we produce neutral beams of liquid helium nanodroplets containing millions of atoms or more that can be ionized by electron impact, mass-per-charge selected, and ionized a second time before being analyzed. Droplets containing up to 55 net positive charges are identified and the appearance sizes of multiply charge droplets are determined as a function of the charge state. We show that the droplets are stable on the millisecond timescale of the experiment and decay through the loss of small charged clusters, not through symmetric Coulomb explosions.

Helium tagging in action spectroscopy is an efficient method for measuring the absorption spectrum of complex molecular ions with minimal perturbations to the gas phase spectrum. We have used superfluid helium nanodroplets doped with corannulene to prepare cations of these molecules complexed with different numbers of He atoms. In total we identify 13 different absorption bands from corannulene cations between 5500 {\AA} and 6000 {\AA}. The He atoms cause a small, chemically induced redshift to the band positions of the corannulene ion. By studying this effect as a function of the number of solvating atoms we are able to identify the formation of solvation structures that are not visible in the mass spectrum. The solvation features detected with the action spectroscopy agree very well with the results of atomistic modeling based on path-integral molecular dynamics simulations. By additionally doping our He droplets with D$_2$, we produce protonated corannulene ions. The absorption spectrum of these ions differs significantly from the case of the radical cations as the numerous narrow bands are replaced by a broad absorption feature that spans nearly 2000 {\AA} in width., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, published in Faraday Discuissions

We present a study of cationic and protonated clusters of neon and krypton. Recent studies using argon have shown that protonated rare gas clusters can have very different magic sizes than pure, cationic clusters. Here, we find that neon behaves similarly to argon, but that the cationic krypton is more similar to its protonated counterparts than the lighter rare gases are, sharing many of the same magic numbers. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13361-019-02329-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

We report the mass spectrometric detection of hydrogenated gold clusters ionized by electron transfer and proton transfer. The cations appear after the pickup of hydrogen molecules and gold atoms by helium nanodroplets (HNDs) near zero K and subsequent exposure to electron impact. We focus on the size distributions of the gold cluster cations and their hydrogen content, the electron energy dependence of the ion yield, patterns of hydrogenated gold cluster cation stability, and the presence of “magic” clusters. Ab initio molecular orbital calculations were performed to provide insight into ionization energies and proton affinities of gold clusters as well as into molecular hydrogen affinities of the ionized and protonated gold cluster cations. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s13361-019-02235-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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There has long been a discrepancy between the size distributions of Ar$_n^+$ clusters measured by different groups regarding whether or not magic numbers appear at sizes corresponding to the closure of icosahedral (sub-)shells. We show that the previously observed magic cluster size distributions are likely the result of an unresolved Ar$_n$H$^+$ component, that is, from protonated argon clusters. We find that the proton impurity gives cluster geometries that are much closer to those for neutral rare gas clusters, which are known to form icosahedral structures, than the pure cationic clusters, explaining why the mass spectra from protonated argon clusters better matches these structural models. Our results thus show that even small impurities, e.g.\ a single proton, can significantly influence the properties of clusters., Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, published in Physical Review A

Spontaneous decays of small, hot silver-cluster anions ${\text{Ag}}_{n}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, $n=4--7$, have been studied using one of the rings of the Double ElectroStatic Ion Ring ExpEriment (DESIREE). Observation of these decays over very long time scales is possible due to the very low residual gas pressure ($\ensuremath{\sim}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}14}$) and cryogenic (13 K) operation of DESIREE. The yield of neutral particles from stored beams of ${\text{Ag}}_{6}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{7}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ anions were measured for 100 milliseconds and were found to follow single power-law behavior with millisecond time-scale exponential cutoffs. The ${\text{Ag}}_{4}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{5}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ anions were stored for 60 s and the observed decays show two-component power-law behaviors. We present calculations of the rate constants for electron detachment from and fragmentation of ${\text{Ag}}_{4}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{5}^{\ensuremath{-}}$. In these calculations, we assume that the internal energy distribution of the clusters are flat and with this we reproduce the early steep parts of the experimentally measured decay curves for ${\text{Ag}}_{4}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{5}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, which extends to tens and hundreds of milliseconds, respectively. The fact that the calculations reproduce the early slopes of ${\text{Ag}}_{4}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{5}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, which differ for the two cases, suggests that it is the changes in fragmentation rates with internal cluster energies of ${\text{Ag}}_{4}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{5}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ rather than conditions in the ion source that determine this behavior. Comparisons with the measurements strongly suggest that the neutral particles detected in these time domains originate from ${\text{Ag}}_{4}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\text{Ag}}_{3}^{\ensuremath{-}}+\text{Ag}$ and ${\text{Ag}}_{5}^{\ensuremath{-}}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{\text{Ag}}_{3}^{\ensuremath{-}}+{\mathrm{Ag}}_{2}$ fragmentation processes.

Ionization, fragmentation and molecular growth have been studied in collisions of 22.5 keV He2+- or 3 keV Ar+-projectiles with pure loosely bound clusters of coronene (C24H12) molecules or with loosely bound mixed C60-C24H12 clusters by using mass spectrometry. The heavier and slower Ar+ projectiles induce prompt knockout-fragmentation - C- and/or H-losses - from individual molecules and highly efficient secondary molecular growth reactions before the clusters disintegrate on picosecond timescales. The lighter and faster He2+ projectiles have a higher charge and the main reactions are then ionization by ions that are not penetrating the clusters. This leads mostly to cluster fragmentation without molecular growth. However, here penetrating collisions may also lead to molecular growth but to a much smaller extent than with 3 keV Ar+. Here we present fragmentation and molecular growth mass distributions with 1 mass unit resolution, which reveals that the same numbers of C- and H-atoms often participate in the formation and breaking of covalent bonds inside the clusters. We find that masses close to those with integer numbers of intact coronene molecules, or with integer numbers of both intact coronene and C60 molecules, are formed where often one or several H-atoms are missing or have been added on. We also find that super-hydrogenated coronene is formed inside the clusters.

An ongoing discussion revolves around the question of what effect hydrogenation has on carbon backbone fragmentation in Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). In order to shed more light on this issue, we have measured absolute single carbon loss cross sections in collisions between native or hydrogenated pyrene cations (C$_{16}$H$_{10+m}^{+}, m$ = 0, 6, 16) and He as functions of center-of-mass energies all the way down to 20 eV. Classical Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations give further insight into energy transfer processes and also yield $m$-dependent threshold energies for prompt (femtoseconds) carbon knockout. Such fast, non-statistical fragmentation processes dominate CH$_x$-loss for native pyrene ($m=0$), while much slower statistical fragmentation processes contribute significantly to single-carbon loss for the hydrogenated molecules ($m=6$ and $m=16$). The latter is shown by measurements of large CH$_x$-loss cross sections far below the MD knockout thresholds for C$_{16}$H$_{16}^{+}$ and C$_{16}$H$_{26}^{+}$., 7 pages, 6 figures

We show that the energetic processing of C60 clusters by slow atomic projectiles leads to ultrafast ( ps ) formation of large covalent carbon nanoparticles containing a few hundreds of atoms. The underlying mechanism is found to be due to impulse-driven collisions between the projectile and the nuclei of the molecules. Experimental findings are well reproduced by classical molecular dynamics simulations. The cross sections for molecular growth processes forming covalent systems which contain more than 60 carbon atoms are about 5 ⋅ 10 − 14 cm 2 representing more than 70% of the geometrical cross sections. This demonstrates the high efficiency of the underlying processes. The formed carbon nanoparticles contain both aromatic and aliphatic structures which have also been considered as dust components in space.

For years, much of our understanding of the formation of circumstellar aromatic molecules has been based on laboratory flame studies. Now, results acquired using a novel experimental technique suggest that circumstellar aromatics might not be formed under the conditions we thought they were.

We have observed significant differences in the fragmentation patterns of isomeric Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon (PAH) cations following collisions with helium atoms at center-of-mass energies around 100 eV. This is in contrast to the situation at other collision energies or in photo-absorption experiments where isomeric effects are very weak and where the lowest-energy dissociation channels (H- and C2H2-loss) domihate in statistical fragmentation processes. In the 100 eV range, non-statistical fragmentation also competes and is uniquely linked to losses of single carbon atoms (CHx-losses). We find that such CHx-losses are correlated with the ionic ground state energy within a given group of isomers. We present results for three C16H10+, four C18H12+ and five C20H12+ isomers colliding with He. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

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Ionization, fragmentation and molecular growth have been studied in collisions of 22.5 keV He2+- or 3 keV Ar+-projectiles with pure loosely bound clusters of coronene (C24H12) molecules or with loosely bound mixed C60-C24H12 clusters by using mass spectrometry. The heavier and slower Ar+ projectiles induce prompt knockout-fragmentation - C- and/or H-losses - from individual molecules and highly efficient secondary molecular growth reactions before the clusters disintegrate on picosecond timescales. The lighter and faster He2+ projectiles have a higher charge and the main reactions are then ionization by ions that are not penetrating the clusters. This leads mostly to cluster fragmentation without molecular growth. However, here penetrating collisions may also lead to molecular growth but to a much smaller extent than with 3 keV Ar+. Here we present fragmentation and molecular growth mass distributions with 1 mass unit resolution, which reveals that the same numbers of C- and H-atoms often participate in the formation and breaking of covalent bonds inside the clusters. We find that masses close to those with integer numbers of intact coronene molecules, or with integer numbers of both intact coronene and C60 molecules, are formed where often one or several H-atoms are missing or have been added on. We also find that super-hydrogenated coronene is formed inside the clusters.

Mass spectra of helium nanodroplets doped with H

We apply near-threshold laser photodetachment to characterize the rotational quantum level distribution of OH- ions stored in the cryogenic ion-beam storage ring DESIREE at Stockholm University. We ...

Synopsis We have produced and mass-selected large, highly charged helium droplets containing up to 1010 He atoms and several tens of charges. They are stable with both multiple positive and negative charge carriers and are stabilized by losing small fragments of excess charge instead of disintegrating (highly asymmetric fission).

Synopsis We report the first observation of the endohedral defect fullerene complex He@C 59 − and the first measurement of the threshold displacement energy of a fullerene.

In 2019 it was exactly 100 years ago that the first two DIBs, diffuse interstellar bands, were discovered by Mary Lea Heger. Today some 500 + DIBs are known. In numerous observational, modelling and laboratory studies, efforts have been made to identify the carriers of these absorption features that are observed in the light of reddened stars crossing diffuse and translucent clouds. Despite several claims over the years that specific DIBs could be assigned to specific species, not one of these withstood dedicated follow-up studies. An exception is C 60 + . In 2015, Campbell et al. showed that two strong bands, recorded in the laboratory around 960 nm, coincided precisely with known DIBs and in follow-up studies three more matches between C 60 + transitions and new observational DIB studies were claimed. Over the last four years the evidence for C 60 + as the first identified DIB carrier – including new laboratory data and Hubble Space Telescope observations – has been accumulating, but not all open issues have been solved yet. This article summarizes 6 spectroscopic achievements that sequentially contributed to what seems to become the first DIB story with a happy end.

We have measured the spontaneous neutral particle emission from copper-cluster anions (${\mathrm{Cu}}_{n}{}^{\ensuremath{-}}, n=3--6$) stored at cryogenic temperatures in one of the electrostatic ion storage rings of the Double ElectroStatic Ion Ring ExpEriment facility at Stockholm University. The measured rate of emission from the stored ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{3}{}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ ions follows a single power-law decay for about 1 ms but then decreases much more rapidly with time. The latter behavior may be due to a decrease in the density of available final states in ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{3}$ as the excitation energies of the decaying ions approach the electron detachment threshold. The emissions from ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{4}{}^{\ensuremath{-}}, {\mathrm{Cu}}_{5}{}^{\ensuremath{-}}$, and ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{6}{}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ are well described by sums of two power laws that are quenched by radiative cooling of the stored ions with characteristic times between a few and hundreds of milliseconds. We relate these two-component behaviors to populations of stored ions with higher and lower angular momenta. In a separate experiment, we studied the laser-induced decay of ${\mathrm{Cu}}_{6}{}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ ions that were excited by 1.13- or 1.45-eV photons after 46 ms of storage.

We have studied collisions between tetraphenylporphyrin cations and He or Ne at center-of-mass energies in the 50-110 eV range. The experimental results were interpreted in view of Density Functional Theory calculations of dissociation energies and classical Molecular Dynamics simulations of how the molecules respond to He/Ne impact. We demonstrate that prompt atom knockout strongly contributes to the total destruction cross sections. Such impulse driven processes typically yield highly reactive fragments and are expected to be important for collisions with any molecular system in this collision energy range, but have earlier been very difficult to isolate for biomolecules., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures

We compute the exponential disc scalelength for 686 disc galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts out to redshift 5.8 based on Hubble Space Telescope archival data. We compare the results with our previous measurements based on 30000 nearby galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our results confirm the presence of a dominating exponential component in galaxies out to this redshift. At the highest redshifts, the disc scalelength for the brightest galaxies with absolute magnitude between -24 and -22 is up to a factor 8 smaller compared to that in the local Universe. This observed scalelength decrease is significantly greater than the value predicted by a cosmological picture in which baryonic disc scalelength scales with the virial radius of the dark matter halo.

We give a detailed description of an electrospray ion source test bench and a single-pass setup for ion fragmentation studies at the DESIREE infrastructure at Stockholm University. This arrangement allows for collision induced dissociation experiments at center-of-mass energies between 10 eV and 1 keV. Charged fragment are analyzed with respect to their kinetic energies (masses) by means of an electrostatic energy analyzer with a wide angular acceptance and adjustable energy resolution., Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures. Instrumentation paper