EUV photochemical production of unsaturated hydrocarbons: implications to EUV photochemistry in Titan and Jovian planets.

The EUV photochemistry of methane is one of the dominant chemical processes in the upper atmospheres of Titan and Jovian planets. The dilution of CH(4) with N(2) significantly changes the subsequent hydrocarbon chemistry initiated by EUV photoionization. At wavelengths below 80 nm, the presence of the dominant N(2) species in a N(2)/CH(4) gas mixture (=95/5) selectively enhances the formation of unsaturated hydrocarbons, such as benzene and toluene, while pure CH(4) gas leads to a wide mixture of saturated/unsaturated hydrocarbon species. This enhanced formation of unsaturated hydrocarbons is most likely initiated by the generation of CH(3)(+) via a dissociative charge-transfer reaction between N(2)(+) and CH(4). This mechanism was further confirmed with the dilution of CH(4) with Ar, which shows similarly enhanced formation of unsaturated species from an Ar/CH(4) (=95/5) gas mixture. In contrast, the depleted generation of unsaturated species from a H(2)/CH(4) gas mixture (=95/5) suggests that the CH(5)(+) ion generated via a proton-transfer reaction is not an important precursor in the production of complex unsaturated hydrocarbons. Therefore, it is the dissociative charge-transfer reaction of CH(4) that initiates the formation of unsaturated complex hydrocarbons through production of C(2)H(5)(+) with subsequent dissociative recombination. Implications regarding photochemistry in the upper atmospheres of Titan and the Jovian planets are discussed.