DNA in living beings is constantly damaged by exogenous and endogenous agents. However, in some cases, DNA photodamage can have interesting applications, as it happens in photodynamic therapy. In this work, the current knowledge on the photophysics of 4-thiouracil has been extended by further quantum-chemistry studies to improve the agreement between theory and experiments, to better understand the differences with 2-thiouracil, and, last but not least, to verify its usefulness as a photosensitizer for photodynamic therapy. This study has been carried out by determining the most favorable deactivation paths of UV–vis photoexcited 4-thiouracil by means of the photochemical reaction path approach and an efficient combination of the complete-active-space second-order perturbation theory//complete-active-space self-consistent field (CASPT2//CASSCF), (CASPT2//CASPT2), time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT), and spin-flip TDDFT (SF-TDDFT) methodologies. By comparing the data computed herein for both 4-thiouracil and 2-thiouracil, a rationale is provided on the relatively higher yields of intersystem crossing, triplet lifetime and singlet oxygen production of 4-thiouracil, and the relatively higher yield of phosphorescence of 2-thiouracil.

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At very low density, the electrons in a uniform electron gas spontaneously break symmetry and form a crystalline lattice called a Wigner crystal. But which type of crystal will the electrons form? We report a numerical study of the density profiles of fragments of Wigner crystals from first principles. To simulate Wigner fragments, we use Clifford periodic boundary conditions and a renormalized distance in the Coulomb potential. Moreover, we show that high-spin restricted open-shell Hartree–Fock theory becomes exact in the low-density limit. We are thus able to accurately capture the localization in two-dimensional Wigner fragments with many electrons. No assumptions about the positions where the electrons will localize are made. The density profiles we obtain emerge naturally when we minimize the total energy of the system. We clearly observe the emergence of the hexagonal crystal structure, which has been predicted to be the ground-state structure of the two-dimensional Wigner crystal.

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Leptoquark models may explain deviations from the standard model observed in decay processes involving heavy quarks at high-energy colliders. Such models give rise to low-energy parity- and time-reversal-violating phenomena in atoms and molecules. One of the leading effects among these phenomena is the nucleon-electron tensor-pseudotensor interaction when the low-energy experimental probe uses a quantum state of an atom or molecule predominantly characterized by closed electron shells. In the present paper the molecular interaction constant for the nucleon-electron tensor-pseudotensor interaction in the thallium-fluoride molecule—used as such a sensitive probe by the CeNTREX collaboration [O. Grasdijk et al., Quantum Sci. Technol. 6, 044007 (2021)]—is calculated employing highly correlated relativistic many-body theory. Accounting for up to quintuple excitations in the wave-function expansion the final result is WT(Tl)=−6.25±0.31 (10−13⟨Σ⟩A a.u.) Interelectron correlation effects on the tensor-pseudotensor interaction are studied rigorously in a molecule.

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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 ~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.

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