Electron impact scattering and electronic excitation in glycolaldehyde: The first ever detected sugar in space

Detailed theoretical investigations on structural, spectroscopic and electron scattering cross sections of glycolaldehyde, the first ever detected sugar in space are reported in this work. Spectroscopic calculations are performed on the ground and excited states of glycolaldehyde using density functional theory (DFT) and time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), respectively. The optimized geometrical parameters and vibrational spectrum are in good agreement with the earlier reported work. Vertical excited state (VES) energies at the TDDFT/B3LYP/aug-cc-PVQZ level of theory along with detailed assignments are reported up to 30 transitions. The TDDFT predicted Rydberg series energies are compared with the Rydberg series of glycolaldehyde converging to its first IP, computed using the standard Rydberg formula and are found to be in good agreement. In the absence of sufficient experimental data on excited states of glycolaldehyde, the theoretical results are validated by comparison of VES calculations performed at the same level of theory with the available experimental data for an analogous molecule viz. acetaldehyde. Triplet excited-state energies for glycolaldehyde are reported here for the first time. Electron impact cross section calculations in the energy range 0.1 to 20 eV are carried out using ab-initio R-matrix method. We have detected one π* shape resonance in all the three models viz. SE, SEP and CC, which may also lead to a possible fragmentation channel wherein a hydrogen atom is removed from the molecule forming a glycolaldehyde dehydrogenated anionic radical (C₂H₃O₂^-). The π* shape resonance is correlated with the corresponding molecular orbital electronic structure calculations. Additionally, differential, electronic excitation, ionization and total cross sections are reported here for the first time.