Experimental evidence for glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol formation by surface hydrogenation of CO molecules under dense molecular cloud conditions

This study focuses on the formation of two molecules of astrobiological importance – glycolaldehyde (HC(O)CH2OH) and ethylene glycol (H2C(OH)CH2OH) – by surface hydrogenation of CO molecules. Our experiments aim at simulating the CO freeze-out stage in interstellar dark cloud regions, well before thermal and energetic processing become dominant. It is shown that along with the formation of H2CO and CH3OH – two well-established products of CO hydrogenation – also molecules with more than one carbon atom form. The key step in this process is believed to be the recombination of two HCO radicals followed by the formation of a C–C bond. The experimentally established reaction pathways are implemented into a continuous-time random-walk Monte Carlo model, previously used to model the formation of CH3OH on astrochemical time-scales, to study their impact on the solid-state abundances in dense interstellar clouds of glycolaldehyde and ethylene glycol.