Photofragmentation of halogenated pyrimidine molecules in the VUV range

In the present work, we studied the photoinduced ion chemistry of the halogenated pyrimidines, a class of prototype radiosensitizing molecules, in the energy region 9-15 eV. The work was stimulated by previous studies on inner shell site-selective fragmentation of the pyrimidine molecule, which have shown that the fragmentation is governed by the population/formation of specific ionic states with a hole in valence orbitals, which in turn correlate to accessible dissociation limits. The combined experimental and theoretical study of the appearance energies of the main fragments provides information on the geometric structure of the products and on the role played by the specific halogen atom and the site of halogenation in the dissociation process. This information can be used to gain new insights on the elementary mechanisms that could possibly explain the enhanced radiation damage to the DNA bases or to the medium in which the bases are embedded, thereby contributing to their radiosensitizing effect.