The NASA Ames PAH IR Spectroscopic Database: The Laboratory Spectra

The astronomical emission features, formerly known as the unidentified infrared bands, are now commonly ascribed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The laboratory experiments and computational modeling performed at NASA Ames Research Center generated a collection of PAH IR spectra that have been used to test and refine the PAH model. These data have been assembled into the NASA Ames PAH IR Spectroscopic Database (PAHdb). PAHdb’s library of computed spectra, currently at version 3.20, contains data on more than 4000 species and the library of laboratory-measured spectra, currently at version 3.00, contains data on 84 species. The spectra can be perused and are available for download at www.astrochemistry.org/pahdb/. This paper introduces the library of laboratory-measured spectra. Although it has been part of PAHdb since its inception, the library of laboratory-measured spectra lacked a proper description in the literature. Here, the experimental methods used to obtain the data are described in detail, an overview of the contents of the experimental library is given, and specific tools developed to analyze and interpret astronomical spectra with the laboratory data are discussed. In addition, updates to the website, documentation and software tools since our last reporting are presented. Software tools to work with the spectroscopic libraries are being developed actively and are available at GitHub. Lastly, a comprehensive demonstration showing how the laboratory-measured data can be applied to explore absorption features in observations toward embedded sources is presented. This demonstration suggests that PAHs very likely contribute to interstellar absorption spectra associated with dense clouds and underscores the need for further IR spectroscopic studies of PAHs trapped in water ice. Unified Astronomy Thesaurus concepts: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (1280); Astrochemistry (75); Interstellar dust (836); Astronomy databases (83); Astronomy data analysis (1858); Laboratory astrophysics (2004); Experimental techniques (2078)