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Bayesian Source Separation for Astrophysical Spectra: Application to PAHs
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| We propose to apply Bayesian source separation techniques to a very important subset of astrophysical spectra, the emission spectra of PAHs. The PAH species, ubiquitous in our Galaxy and in external galaxies, are one of the most important molecular species in the pathway to life. Their spectra are the result of the blending of the complex spectra of individual PAH species, possibly at different temperatures, and to date they have defied all attempts to unscramble them into individual contributors. We propose to apply Bayesian source separation for the first time in order to quantitatively determine which of the many hundreds of individual PAH species contribute most significantly to the combined emission spectra of PAHs. Our research will lead to powerful new tools for decomposing, analyzing and characterizing the spectra of these critical species. Furthermore, these tools will be readily generalizable to a wide array of spectral analysis problems ranging across astrophysics, Earth science and biology. |
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