The 890 nm Band of Methane

Details The 890 nm Band of Methane The 890 nm Band of Methane

Sep 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.3604b&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #36.04

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

The near infrared bands of methane were the first observed in the outer planets and Titan. With the very long paths of rays in this spectral region within the atmospheres of these objects, scattering and pressure and temperature inhomogeneities are important. Here the spectrum is very complex and long absorption paths in the laboratory are difficult to cool to outer solar system temperatures. Many significant spectral lines appear per Doppler width, so the absorption is usually modeled statistically. The problem with these statistical models is that violations of the modeling assumptions can cause the extrapolation of laboratory parameters to predict absorption that diverges from the actual. These models generally do not provide transmissions that are multiplicative, so scattering and inhomogeneous atmospheres cannot be properly modeled.
The intracavity laser spectrometer of the University of Missouri-St. Louis was used to obtain low temperature (99-161K), low pressure (0.12-7.13 Torr), long path (3.14-5.65 km) and high resolution ( 0.01 cm-1 HWHM) spectra of methane covering the entire 890nm feature (10925-11500 cm-1), the deepest band in the CCD spectral region. At these temperatures the spectral lines originating from higher energy levels are not visible and the Doppler width is decreased substantially from room temperature. The result is a dense, but manageable spectrum from which line positions, intensities and lower state energies are derived on a line by line basis by the William and Mary multispectrum nonlinear least squares fitting program, allowing for the simulation of the spectrum at infinite resolution for any physical conditions with temperature less than 160K.
Support for the work at William and Mary was provided by NASA through grant NNX08AF06G. Support for the work at UM-St. Louis provided by NASA through grant NAG5-12013, from NSF through grant CHE-0213356 and by the University of Missouri Research Board.

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