Experimental evidence for glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol formation by surface hydrogenation of CO molecules under dense molecular cloud conditions

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Abstract
This study focuses on the formation of two molecules of astrobiological importance – glycolaldehyde (HC(O)CH2OH) and ethylene glycol (H2C(OH)CH2OH) – by surface hydrogenation of CO molecules. Our experiments aim at simulating the CO freeze-out stage in interstellar dark cloud regions, well before thermal and energetic processing become dominant. It is shown that along with the formation of H2CO and CH3OH – two well-established products of CO hydrogenation – also molecules with more than one carbon atom form. The key step in this process is believed to be the recombination of two HCO radicals followed by the formation of a C–C bond. The experimentally established reaction pathways are implemented into a continuous-time random-walk Monte Carlo model, previously used to model the formation of CH3OH on astrochemical time-scales, to study their impact on the solid-state abundances in dense interstellar clouds of glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol.
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