PAH Emission Spectra and Band Ratios for Arbitrary Radiation Fields with the Single Photon Approximation

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Autori principali: Richie, Helena M., Hensley, Brandon S.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Richie, Helena M.
Hensley, Brandon S.
author_facet Richie, Helena M.
Hensley, Brandon S.
contents We present a new method for generating emission spectra from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in arbitrary radiation fields. We utilize the single-photon limit for PAH heating and emission to treat individual photon absorptions as independent events. This allows the construction of a set of single-photon emission "basis spectra" that can be scaled to produce an output emission spectrum given any input heating spectrum. We find that this method produces agreement with PAH emission spectra computed accounting for multi-photon effects to within $\simeq10\%$ in the $3-20~{\rm μm}$ wavelength range for radiation fields with intensity $U<100$. We use this framework to explore the dependence of PAH band ratios on the radiation field spectrum across grain sizes, finding in particular a strong dependence of the 3.3 to $11.2~μ$m band ratio on radiation field hardness. A Python-based tool and a set of basis spectra that can be used to generate these emission spectra are made publicly available.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_16861
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle PAH Emission Spectra and Band Ratios for Arbitrary Radiation Fields with the Single Photon Approximation
Richie, Helena M.
Hensley, Brandon S.
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We present a new method for generating emission spectra from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in arbitrary radiation fields. We utilize the single-photon limit for PAH heating and emission to treat individual photon absorptions as independent events. This allows the construction of a set of single-photon emission "basis spectra" that can be scaled to produce an output emission spectrum given any input heating spectrum. We find that this method produces agreement with PAH emission spectra computed accounting for multi-photon effects to within $\simeq10\%$ in the $3-20~{\rm μm}$ wavelength range for radiation fields with intensity $U<100$. We use this framework to explore the dependence of PAH band ratios on the radiation field spectrum across grain sizes, finding in particular a strong dependence of the 3.3 to $11.2~μ$m band ratio on radiation field hardness. A Python-based tool and a set of basis spectra that can be used to generate these emission spectra are made publicly available.
title PAH Emission Spectra and Band Ratios for Arbitrary Radiation Fields with the Single Photon Approximation
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.16861