PDRs4All XXIII. JWST-MIRI template spectra of PAHs in the Orion Bar obtained with blind signal separation
astro-ph.GA
Submitted: 2026-10-14
Updated: 2026-10-14
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The gist: The aromatic infrared bands (AIBs) are observed in a wide variety of astrophysical sources, and now in unprecedented detail by the James Webb space telescope (JWST).
Abstract
The aromatic infrared bands (AIBs) are observed in a wide variety of astrophysical sources, and now in unprecedented detail by the James Webb space telescope (JWST). These bands are generally attributed to the emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs). Our aim is to extract mid-infrared AIB template spectra from JWST observations of the Orion Bar photo-dissociation region that can be used to derive PAH properties from observations of other objects. We used the JWST MIRI-MRS observations from the PDRs4All program. We first isolated the AIBs from the data using a multi-component fitting approach. We then applied a non-negative matrix factorization to the isolated AIB spectra and extracted two templates, named AIBirrad and AIBshield following previous work. The spatial distribution and spectral characteristics of these two spectra suggest that they originate from two chemical distinct populations. We interpret AIBirrad as emission originating from a PAH population strongly exposed to ultra-violet (UV) radiation and mainly composed of large, compact ionized PAHs. Conversely, AIBshield is interpreted as originating from a more shielded population of PAHs, which is less exposed to the UV by being more embedded in the cloud. This population consists of small, asymmetric and mainly neutral PAHs with bonded aliphatic side groups. These templates can serve to analyze PAH emission in a wide variety of objects observed with MIRI-MRS.
Related papers
- Apparent Stability in Self-Gravitating Turbulence and the Evolution of Molecular Clouds
- Two sets of potential-density basis pairs for the study of radial perturbations in collisionless spherical stellar systems
- Constraining reionization-era Ly alpha escape with JELS-MUSE: a highly complete H alpha-selected sample at z about6.1
- Deriving volume density profiles of filaments from observed surface densities
- Little Red Dots and Supermassive Black Hole Seed Formation in Ultralight Dark Matter Halos
- MEGATRON: how the first stars can create an iron metallicity plateau in the smallest dwarf galaxies