Gold-catalyzed intramolecular hydroarylation of olefins. Scope evaluation and preliminary mechanistic studies

We report a gold-catalyzed intramolecular hydroarylation of unactivated olefins using a combination of AuCl3/AgOTf as the catalytic system affording dihydrobenzopyrans, tetralins and tetrahydroquinolines in good yields. For our preliminary mechanistic studies, we have investigated the kinetic isotope effects with deuterated arene compounds and found that this catalytic hydroarylation is consistent with an electrophilic aromatic substitution process.