Theoretical insights into the dissociation process for dissociative electron attachment to adenine and its tautomer

The ab initio molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using an atom-centered density matrix propagation method are carried out in the first time to investigate the dissociative electron attachment (DEA) processes of adenine and its tautomer in the gas phase. Since the incoming electron are captured on the lowest π∗ anti-bond orbital, which is led to the different N–H bond, the C–H bond and the C–N bond are broken. The dominant anion observed in DEA dissociation process is the closed-shell dehydrogenated anion (Ade − H)−. The additional anions (Ade − NH2)− and (Ade − 2H)− are also obtained in ADMP simulation. The results are well consistent with the previous DEA experimental results. Thus, the ADMP method is used to gain a more intuitive and better understanding of the necessary dissociation process in the DEA experiment.