Associate Professor Benjamin McCall has been elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society “for integrative studies of the simplest polyatomic molecule (H3+), including its dissociative recombination, proton-swapping reaction with H2, and astronomical observations and modeling; and for the development of high-sensitivity, high-precision methods for molecular ion spectroscopy."
McCall has built an exciting research program in the emerging field of astrochemistry. His team’s work probes the network of chemical reactions responsible for the formation of most molecules in the universe and so has profound implications for our understanding of the origins of the universe and life.
McCall’s research group has developed new highly sensitive techniques in high-resolution laser spectroscopy to study astronomically important molecular ions in the gas phase. This laboratory work generates spectroscopic “fingerprints” of the highly reactive (and therefore short-lived) ions at low temperatures.
McCall and his team are then able to use powerful ground-based and space-based telescopes to search for these spectra to determine the concentration of these molecular ions in the interstellar medium and in interstellar clouds, where low densities and ultracold temperatures slow the unfolding of chemical reactions. Finally, McCall and his team interpret the concentrations using models based on chemical kinetics to characterize the chemical and physical conditions in the interstellar clouds.
The McCall research group’s studies of the chemical reaction of H3+ with H2 (which interchanges identical protons subject to the conservation of nuclear spin angular momentum) and the recombination of H3+ with electrons (a key process in interstellar chemistry) has shed new light on the composition of interstellar environments.
Election to fellowship in the American Physical Society is limited to no more than one-half of one percent of the Society's membership and is conferred following a rigorous, peer-reviewed selection process. Fellows are recognized internationally for their outstanding contributions to physics.
From Siv Schwink, Department of Physics (original story)