The Liversidge Lecture 2001-02. Chemistry amongst the stars: reaction kinetics at a new frontier

Over the past decade, experiments in the Universities of Rennes and Birmingham have provided rate constants for over 40 reactions of molecular and atomic radicals with neutral molecules at temperatures down to 13 K using the CRESU (cinetique de reaction en ecoulement supersonique uniforme) technique. The demonstration that reactions between electrically neutral species can be extremely rapid at these,,cry low temperatures has excited interest both from theoreticians and from those seeking to understand the chemistry that gives rise to the 120 or so molecules that have been identified as being present in dense interstellar clouds. This laboratory, work, and its astrochemical and theoretical contexts, are reviewed here. In addition, I deal briefly with the present limitations of the experiments and how they might be overcome in future work.