• DOI:10.1038/s41586-019-1090-x
Corpus ID: 119548024

Astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion HeH+

@article{Gsten2019AstrophysicalDO,
  title={Astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion HeH+},
  author={R. G{\"u}sten and H. Wiesemeyer and D. Neufeld and K. Menten and U. Graf and K. Jacobs and B. Klein and O. Ricken and C. Risacher and J. Stutzki},
  journal={Nature},
  year={2019},
  volume={568},
  pages={357-359}
}

• R. Güsten, H. Wiesemeyer, +7 authors J. Stutzki
• Published 2019
• Physics, Medicine
• Nature

During the dawn of chemistry1,2, when the temperature of the young Universe had fallen below some 4,000 kelvin, the ions of the light elements produced in Big Bang nucleosynthesis recombined in reverse order of their ionization potential. With their higher ionization potentials, the helium ions He2+ and He+ were the first to combine with free electrons, forming the first neutral atoms; the recombination of hydrogen followed. In this metal-free and low-density environment, neutral helium atoms… Expand