http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.0691
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are believed to be the small-size tail of the interstellar carbonaceous dust grain population. Their vibrational emission is the most widely accepted source of the aromatic near-infrared features, and their rotational radiation is a likely explanation for the dust-correlated anomalous microwave emission (AME). Yet, no individual interstellar PAH molecule has been identified to date. It was recently recognized that quasi-symmetric planar PAHs ought to have a well identifiable comb-like rotational spectrum, and suggested to search for them in spectroscopic data with matched-filtering techniques. We report the results of the first such search, carried out with the Green Bank Telescope, and targeting the star-forming region IC348 in the Perseus molecular cloud, a known source of AME. Our observations amounted to 16.75 hours and spanned a 3 GHz-wide band extending from 23.3 to 26.3 GHz. Using frequency switching, we achieved a sensitivity of 0.4 mJy per 0.4 MHz channel (1-sigma). The non-detection of comb-like spectra allowed us to set upper bounds on the abundance of specific quasi-symmetric PAH molecules (specified uniquely by their moments of inertia) of approximately 0.1% of the total PAH abundance. This bound generically applies to PAHs with approximately 15 to 100 carbon atoms.
Y. Ali-Haimoud, L. Perez, R. Maddalena, et. al.
Wed, 5 Nov 14
38/61
Comments: 11 pages, 11 figures
You must be logged in to post a comment.