Unexpected Long-Lived Highly Excited PAHs Following XUV Excitation

The advent of sources producing ultrashort XUV pulses has brought new perspectives in observing atoms and molecules on their natural time scale. First experiments have been performed on molecules showing the ability to observe and control electron and (coupled) nuclear dynamics in real time, down to the attosecond timescale [1,2]. As rigid and symmetric systems, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) constitute prototypes for the investigation of complex molecules, where many-body effects play a central role in the dynamical processes under XUV radiation. Moreover, due to their high stability, they are even thought as a primordial class of large molecules in space [3], where their photo-induced reactions are of major importance for interstellar chemistry.