C${}_{60}^{+}$ - looking for the bucky-ball in interstellar space

Abstract

The laboratory gas phase spectrum recently published by Campbell et al. has reinvigorated attempts to confirm the presence of the C${}_{60}^{+}$ cation in the interstellar medium, thorough an analysis of the spectra of hot, reddened stars. This search is hindered by at least two issues that need to be addressed: (i) the wavelength range of interest is severely polluted by strong water- vapour lines coming from the Earth's atmosphere; (ii) one of the major bands attributed to C${}_{60}^{+}$, at 9633 Å, is blended with the stellar Mg{\sc ii} line, which is susceptible to non-local-thermodynamic equilibrium effects in hot stellar atmospheres. Both these issues are here carefully considered here for the first time, based on high-resolution and high signal-to-noise ratio echellé spectra for 19 lines of sight. The result is that the presence of C${}_{60}^{+}$ in interstellar clouds is brought into question.

arXiv comment10 pages, 11 figures

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Cited by in corpus (21)

• Confirming interstellar C${}_{60}^{+}$ using the Hubble Space Telescope
• The Apache Point Observatory Catalog of Optical Diffuse Interstellar Bands
• The ESO Diffuse Interstellar Bands Large Exploration Survey: EDIBLES I. Project description, survey sample and quality assessment
• C${}_{60}^{+}$ and the Diffuse Interstellar Bands: An Independent Laboratory Check
• Searching for interstellar C60+ using a new method for high signal-to-noise HST/STIS spectroscopy
• EDIBLES II. On the detectability of C60+ bands
• The Behavior of Selected Diffuse Interstellar Bands with Molecular Fraction in Diffuse Atomic and Molecular Clouds
• DECH: Software Package for Astronomical Spectral Data Processing and Analysis
• Are the Carriers of Diffuse Interstellar Bands and Extended Red Emission the same?
• Survey of near-infrared diffuse interstellar bands in $Y$ and $J$ bands. I. Newly identified bands
• Diffuse bands 9577 and 9633 -- relations to other interstellar features
• Survey of very broad Diffuse Interstellar Bands
• C${}_{60}^{+}$ diffuse interstellar band correlations and environmental variations
• The diffuse interstellar band around 8620 Å II. Kinematics and distance of the DIB carrier
• A high resolution study of near-IR diffuse interstellar bands, search for small scale structure, time variability and stellar features
• C60 Cation as the Carrier of the 9577 and 9632 Angstrom Diffuse Interstellar Bands: Further Support from the VLT/X-Shooter Spectra
• The C60:C60+ ratio in diffuse and translucent interstellar clouds
• Near-Infrared Diffuse Interstellar Bands towards Her 36
• Broadened profiles of Diffuse Interstellar Bands
• Analysis of integrated-light spectra of Galactic globular clusters
• The Pristine Inner Galaxy Survey (PIGS) VI: Different vertical distributions between two DIBs at 442.8 nm and 862.1 nm