Research projects

EuroHPC JU project 2025-2026

The project "Interstellar dust: from silicate core towards the dirty icy grain mantle" has been awarded with 15 000 000 core-hours on the LUMI supercomputer, through the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) Regular Access call - PI: Dr. Stefano Pantaleone, Co-PI: Prof. Piero Ugliengo

The prebiotic emergence of Earth's chemical complexity is a contentious topic within the astrochemical community. In the interstellar medium (ISM), molecular clouds - composed primarily of atomic species and dust grains - act as natural reactors for initiating chemical processes. Yet, the extreme environmental conditions, with pressures ranging from 10¹ to 10⁶ particles/cm³ and temperatures between 10 and 100 K, greatly inhibit most chemical reactions. This raises a pivotal question: what initial spark enabled atomic species to combine into simple molecules, eventually evolving into the intricate systems towards life? Dust grains, nanometric/micrometric particles mainly consisting of rocky materials, serve as concentrators of gaseous atoms; through diffusion, this leads to the formation of fundamental molecules like molecular hydrogen, the most abundant molecule in the Universe. Given the severe physico-chemical conditions within molecular clouds, laboratory studies of these phenomena prove extremely challenging, thereby elevating computational chemistry to a central role in astrochemical research. This project aims to investigate the structure and chemical properties of dust grains while examining the key reactions at their interfaces. Ultimately, the research seeks to shed light on our astrochemical heritage, tracing the evolution from basic atomic constituents to complex molecular systems.

EuroHPC JU project 2024-2025

The project "Interstellar dust grains coating: water formation on forsterite nanoparticles" has been awarded with 14 000 000 core-hours on the LUMI supercomputer, through the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking (EuroHPC JU) Regular Access call - PI: Dr. Stefano Pantaleone, Co-PI: Prof. Piero Ugliengo

The prebiotic origin of the chemical complexity found on Earth nowadays is a matter of debate in the astrochemical community, in particular because chemical processes start in the molecular clouds, i.e. the first step of a planetary system formation, where the matter is diffuse (101-106 particles/cm3), and the temperatures low (10-100 K). These extreme conditions hinder whatever chemical reaction, thus raising a fundamental question: which is the spark that made possible the elemental reactions that from atomic species led to simple molecules until the most complex living and thinking systems? The dust grains, nanometric particles made by rocky materials, work as concentrators of atomic species that from the gas phase freeze out onto the grains and react among them, thus forming the first simple molecules. Studying such phenomena through laboratory experiments is extremely challenging, and, for this reason, computational chemistry became in the last years a fundamental pillar in the astrochemistry field. The aim of this project is to study the structure and chemical properties of dust grains, as well as the most interesting reactions occurring at their interface. The broader scope of this research is to shed light on the comprehension of our astrochemical heritage, starting from the formation of the simplest molecules by their atomic components.