IR Spectroscopy of PANHs in Dense Clouds

Details IR Spectroscopy of PANHs in Dense Clouds IR Spectroscopy of PANHs in Dense Clouds

Mar 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008sptz.prop50257a&link_type=abstract

Spitzer Proposal ID #50257

Computer Science

Scientific paper

Interstellar PAHs are likely to be frozen into ice mantles on dust grains in dense clouds. These PAHs will produce IR absorption bands, not emission features. A couple of very weak absorption features in ground based spectra of a few objects in dense clouds may be due to PAHs. It is now thought that aromatic molecules in which N atoms are substituted for a few of the C atoms in a PAH's hexagonal skeletal network (PANHs) may well be as abundant and ubiquitous throughout the interstellar medium as PAHs. Spaceborne observations in the 5 to 8 um region, the region in which PAH spectroscopy is rich, reveal unidentified new bands and significant variation from object to object. It is not possible to analyze these observations because lab spectra of PANHs and PAHs condensed in realistic interstellar ice analogs are lacking. This lab data is necessary to interpret observations because, in ice mantles, the surrounding molecules affect PANH and PAH IR band positions, widths, profiles, and intrinsic strengths. Further, PAHs (and PANHs?) are readily ionized in pure H2O ice, further altering the spectrum. This proposal starts to address this situation by studying the IR spectra of PANHs frozen in laboratory ice analogs that reflect the composition of the interstellar ices observed in dense clouds. Thanks to Spitzer Cycle-4 support, we are now measuring the spectra of PAHs in interstellar ice analogs to provide laboratory spectra that can be used to interpret IR observations. Here we propose to extend this work to PANHs. We will measure the spectra of these interstellar ice analogs containing PANHs before and after ionization and determine the band strengths of neutral and ionized PANHs in these ices. This will enable a quantitative assessment of the role that PANHs can play in the 5-8 um spectrum of dense clouds and address the following two fundamental questions associated with dense cloud spectroscopy and chemistry: 1- Can PANHs be detected in dense clouds? 2- Are PANH ions components of interstellar ice?

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