3D Map of Diffuse Interstellar Band Strengths
Emmet Katzer, Chance Beaty, Advisor: Dr. Julie Dahlstrom
Carthage College Department of Physics and Astronomy
Background
Diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) are absorption features that
appear in star spectra due to material in the interstellar medium,
the space between us and other stars. Although DIBs were
discovered nearly 100 years ago, their chemical carriers remain
unidentified. To place constraints on possible carriers, we
explored the 3-dimensional spatial distribution of DIB
absorption for known features at 5780, 5797, and 6284
angstroms.
Figure 1: Schematic showing sightlines without DIB
absorption (above) and with DIB absorption (below).
Figure 2: Spectra of stars of similar attributes. Red
spectrum is a sightline with no DIBs, while the green
spectrum contains DIBs, most prominently at 4430 Å.
Data Results
Archival spectra were obtained of O, B, A, F, or G stars (Elodie
classifications) from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). In order
to produce a map with adequate coverage of the celestial sphere,
including cooler stars in the program was essential for fuller
coverage of the celestial sphere. A strict signal-to-noise cut-off of
S/N > 40 was observed to ensure the best possible results for the
cooler stars. Distance data were obtained from the GAIA Database.
Process
A data analysis pipeline was created using Jupyter Notebook, a
computational environment for the Python language, and the Astropy
package of astronomical utilities. The pipeline was designed and
tested to process 23,000 spectra by (1) template division to isolate
the DIB features and (2) equivalent width measurement of DIBs
5780, 5797, and 6284. Measurements were then combined with
distance data to produce a series of heat maps of DIB strength with
position and distance.
Figure 3: Target star before (left) and after (right) template division.
DIB features are measured in the the resultant spectrum.
These heat maps are shown in rectilinear coordinates.
Future data visualizations will render these these maps
spherical and integrate them into the Carthage planetarium.
Figure 4: DIB strengths are characterized by equivalent widths, the Acknowledgements
● Carthage SURE program
areas of the red and blue features.
● National Science Foundation DUE-1660620 (Noyce)