Laboratory investigation of shock-induced dissociation of buckminsterfullerene and astrophysical insights

Fullerene C-60 is one of the most iconic forms of carbon found in the interstellar medium (ISM). The interstellar chemistry of carbon-rich components, including fullerenes, is driven by a variety of energetic processes including UV and X-ray irradiation, cosmic-ray (CR) bombardment, electron impact, and shock waves. These violent events strongly alter the particle phase and lead to the release of new molecular species in the gas phase. Only a few experimental studies on the shock processing of cosmic analogs have been conducted so far. We explored in the laboratory the destruction of buckminsterfullerene C-60 using a pressure-driven shock tube coupled with optical diagnostics. Our efforts were first devoted to probing in situ the shock-induced processing of C-60 at high temperatures (<= 4500 K) by optical emission spectroscopy. The analysis of the spectra points to the massive production of C-2 units. A broad underlying continuum was observed as well and was attributed to the collective visible emission of carbon clusters, generated similarly in large amounts. This proposed assignment was performed with the help of calculated emission spectra of various carbon clusters. The competition between dissociation and radiative relaxation, determined by statistical analysis, alludes to a predominance of clusters with less than 40 carbon atoms. Our laboratory experiments, supported by molecular dynamics simulations performed in the canonical ensemble, suggest that C-60 is very stable, and that high-energy input is required to process it under interstellar low-density conditions and to produce C-2 units and an abundance of intermediate-sized carbon clusters. These results provide some insights into the life cycle of carbon in space. Our findings hint that only J-type shocks with velocities above similar to 100 km s(-1) or C-type shocks with velocities above 9 km s(-1) can lead to the destruction of fullerenes. Observational tracers of this process remain elusive, however. Our work confirms the potential of shock tubes for laboratory astrophysics.