Spectral Stacking And Matched Filtering As A Rigorous Detection Technique For Interstellar Molecules

Loomis, Ryan A.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/111554 Copy

Description

Title

Spectral Stacking And Matched Filtering As A Rigorous Detection Technique For Interstellar Molecules

Author(s)

Loomis, Ryan A.

Contributor(s)

• Remijan, Anthony
• McCarthy, Michael C.
• McGuire, Brett A.
• Kalenskii, Sergei
• Herbst, Eric
• Cordiner, Martin
• Charnley, Steven B.
• Shingledecker, Christopher N.
• Burkhardt, Andrew M.
• Xue, Ci
• Lee, Kelvin

Issue Date

2021-06-24

Keyword(s)

Astronomy

Abstract

As the inventory of interstellar molecules continues to grow, the gulf between small species, whose individual rotational lines can be observed with radio telescopes, and large ones, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) best studied in bulk via infrared and optical observations, is slowly being bridged. Understanding the connection between these two molecular reservoirs is critical to probing topics such as the interstellar carbon cycle, but will require pushing the boundaries of how far we can probe molecular complexity while still retaining observational specificity. Toward this end, we have developed a method for detecting and characterizing new molecular species in single-dish observations toward sources with sparse line spectra. Application of this method to data from the ongoing GOTHAM (GBT Observations of TMC-1: Hunting Aromatic Molecules) Green Bank Telescope (GBT) large program has resulted in ten new interstellar species detections thus far. In this talk, I present an overview of the method and demonstrate that it is a robust detection technique, highlighting both its strengths and limitations.

Publisher

International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy

Type of Resource

Text

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/111554

DOI

10.15278/isms.2021.RC08

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