Negative ion formation by low energy electron attachment to gas-phase 5-nitrouracil

Abstract Dissociative electron attachment (DEA) to gas phase 5-nitrouracil (5NU) is studied using a double focusing sector field mass spectrometer and a hemispherical electron monochromator (HEM) combined with a quadrupole mass spectrometer (QMS). Besides the formation of the long-lived parent anion 5NU − , low energy electron impact ( 2 ) − , which is produced directly in the ion source and also weakly as a product of a metastable decay of 5NU − . These experiments were supported by quantum chemical calculations based on the density functional theory to calculate the electrostatic potential and molecular orbitals.