The Survival of Aromatic Molecules in Protoplanetary Disks

Abstract Aromaticity is a common chemical functionality in bioactive molecules. In interstellar and circumstellar environments, benzene and other small aromatics are considered the precursors for more complex prebiotic molecules, and they have been shown to potentially have rich ice-phase photochemistry. The availability of small organic molecules in prebiotic networks depends on their photostability in astrophysical environments preceding planet formation, particularly during the protoplanetary disk stage, as the disk composition is linked to the chemical makeup of planets and planetesimals. We study the ultraviolet (UV) photodestruction (120–160 nm) of five aromatic molecules in undiluted ices and, for selected cases, in astrophysically relevant ice matrices (H 2 O, CO, CO 2 ). For each ice, we measure the destruction cross sections as a function of photon exposure. In undiluted ices, aromatic molecules exhibit substantially lower photodestruction cross sections ( σ < 10 −19 cm 2 ) than aliphatic hydrocarbons, including cyclohexane ( σ = 2.8–4 × 10 −18 cm 2 ). Furthermore, neither substituent nature nor size affects the aromatic stability in pure ices, suggesting that the strong intermolecular interactions among aromatic molecules provide protection against vacuum UV exposure, even with small to mid-sized ring substituents. In mixed ices, the photodestruction and reactivity of aromatic molecules ( σ = 2.5–6.1 × 10 −18 cm 2 ) increase by more than an order of magnitude, but are still lower than in the gas phase. We attribute this to a weaker cage effect and matrix-specific interactions. We use the experimental photodestruction cross sections to estimate the lifetime of aromatic molecules in protoplanetary disks, delineating the disk regions in which aromatic photochemistry is expected to be the most active.