Abstract
INFRARED emission features consisting of narrow lines and broad plateaux, ranging from 3 μm in wavelength to over 12 μm, are seen in a wide variety of astronomical objects in which interstellar or circumstellar gas is illuminated by ultraviolet radiation from a star. Several candidates have been proposed as the source of this emission, but none is widely accepted. Here I calculate the vibrational spectrum of the fullerane C60H60, the saturated hydride of the soccerball-shaped molecule C60, using a force-field model. Six of the infrared active frequencies match unidentified emission lines to within 4%, and a seventh differs from an observed line by 8%. The calculation suggests why the astronomical feature at 7.7 μm is the strongest, and the observed variation of the 3.4 μm and 3.28 μm features with astrophysical environment is consistent with the idea that the former is attributable to stretching of the C–H bond in heavily hydrogenated fulleranes, whereas the latter is due to the same transition in lightly hydrogenated fulleranes.
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Webster, A. Comparison of a calculated spectrum of C60H60 with the unidentified astronomical infrared emission features. Nature 352, 412–414 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1038/352412a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/352412a0
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