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Interstellar PAHs and Dust

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Abstract

Interstellar dust and large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAHs) molecules are important components of the Interstellar Medium of galaxies where, among other things, they regulate the opacity, influence the heating and cooling of neutral atomic and molecular gas, and provide active surfaces for chemistry. Through this interaction with gas, photons, and energetic ions, dust and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules influence key processes in the evolution of the interstellar medium and in turn are modified in their physical and chemical properties. This complex feedback drives the evolution of galaxies and its observational characteristics. In this chapter, our understanding of interstellar dust and large polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon molecules is described. Besides observations and their analysis, this chapter describes the physical processes involved, the life cycle of interstellar dust, and some aspects of the role of interstellar dust and PAHs in the evolution of the interstellar medium.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In the older literature, these features are also referred to as the Unidentified InfraRed (UIR) bands.

  2. 2.

    Presently features have been detected out to 20 μm but Herschel may extend this into the far-IR and even the sub-millimeter.

  3. 3.

    Solar, B-star, and young F-G star abundances differ by about 0.2 dex and moreover vary between different determinations (Jenkins 2009)

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Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank the many students, postdocs, and colleagues that I have been privileged to work with over the last three decades. I particularly want to single out here Lou Allamandola, Jan Cami, Jean Chiar, Sacha Hony, Ant Jones, and Els Peeters for their untiring efforts to educate me in all things dusty and molecular in the Universe.

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© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Tielens, A. (2013). Interstellar PAHs and Dust. In: Oswalt, T.D., Gilmore, G. (eds) Planets, Stars and Stellar Systems. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5612-0_10

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