Magnesium radicals MgC5N and MgC6H in IRC+10216

After the previous discovery of MgC3N and MgC4H in IRC +10216, a deeper Q-band (31.0-50.3 GHz) integration on this source had revealed two additional series of harmonically related doublets that we assigned on the basis of quantum mechanical calculations to the larger radicals MgC5N and MgC6H. The results presented here extend and confirm previous results on magnesium-bearing molecules in IRC +10216. We derived column densities of (4.7 +/- 1.3) x 10(12) for MgC5N and (2.0 +/- 0.9) x 10(13) for MgC6H, which imply that MgC5N/MgC3N = 0.5 and MgC6H/MgC4H = 0.9. Therefore, MgC5N and MgC6H are present with column densities not so different from those of the immediately shorter analogs. The synthesis of these large magnesium cyanides and acetylides in IRC +10216 can be explained for their shorter counterparts by a two-step process initiated by the radiative association of Mg+ with large cyanopolyynes and polyynes, which are still quite abundant in this source, followed by the dissociative recombination of the ionic complexes.

Automated summary

The study identified larger radicals MgC5N and MgC6H in IRC +10216, with column densities similar to those of shorter analogs, supporting previous research on magnesium-bearing molecules in the source. The presence of these large magnesium cyanides and acetylides can be explained by a two-step process involving radiative association and dissociative recombination of ionic complexes built from large cyanopolyynes and polyynes in IRC +10216.