2004/07/19 by J. Cami, Farid Salama, F. Salama +5 · 1 citation
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Atmospheric Ozone and Climate #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/423991
published as Astrophys.J. 611 (2004) L113-L116 · Accepted by ApJ Letters; 16 pages, 2 figures
arxiv created 2004/07/19 · openalex publication_date 2004/07/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Analysis of high spectral resolution observations of the λ6614 diffuse interstellar band (DIB) line profile shows systematic variations in the positions of the peaks in the substructure of the profile. These variations—shown here for the first time—can be understood most naturally in the framework of rotational contours of large molecules, where the variations are caused by changes in the rotational excitation temperature. We show that the rotational excitation temperature for the DIB carrier is likely significantly lower than the gas kinetic temperature—indicating that for this particular DIB carrier angular momentum buildup is not very efficient.