Observation of vibrationally excited states of sic2 by stimulated emission pumping

Reilly, Neil J.

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/107616 Copy

Description

Title

Observation of vibrationally excited states of sic2 by stimulated emission pumping

Author(s)

Reilly, Neil J.

Contributor(s)

• McCarthy, Michael C.
• Flores, Jonathan
• Lee, Kelvin
• Ross, Sederra D.

Issue Date

2020-06-24

Keyword(s)

Astronomy

Abstract

Recent observations of the evolved carbon star IRC+10216 with unprecedented high angular resolution have revealed a plethora of unassigned (U) rovibrational lines associated with the dust formation zone. Because SiC$_2$ is a known, abundant molecular constituent of this region, it is reasonable to posit that some fraction of the observed U lines arise from vibrationally excited levels of SiC$_2$ that are populated at elevated temperatures. At present, the radio band laboratory data that would permit testing of this hypothesis are largely absent: \textit{ab initio} prediction of relevant spectroscopic parameters for SiC$_2$ has proved particularly challenging, and its excited vibrational levels are insufficiently populated in supersonic jet sources. However, the electronic transition responsible for the well-known blue-green Merrill-Sanford bands of SiC$_2$ admits Franck-Condon access to vibrational levels at least 4000\,K above ground, inviting the application of stimulated emission pumping (SEP) for the observation of vibrationally excited states. SiC$_2$ has been efficiently generated in a jet-cooled discharge of silane and acetylene, optically pumped via the M-S bands, and fluorescence depletion SEP spectra observed for dump transitions terminating in a variety of excited vibrational levels of the ground electronic state. For known transitions within 1$\nu_3$ and 2$\nu_3$ (the pinwheel mode), our measurements are in generally excellent agreement (a factor of at least 5 smaller than the dump laser linewidth) with previous observations, giving us good faith in our experimental procedure; rotational analyses of previously unobserved transitions of all three vibrational modes are on-going at the time of writing, and will be discussed.

Publisher

International Symposium on Molecular Spectroscopy

Type of Resource

Text

Language

eng

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/107616

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