An experimental approach to the prediction of complete millimeter/submillimeter spectra at astrophysical temperatures: applications to confusion limited astrophysical observations

de Lucia博士和他的团队解决了毫米和亚毫米（mm/submm）天体物理目录严重不完整的问题。对ALMA和其他毫米/亚毫米天文台的数据进行优化分析需要理论工作和实验室光谱。这里的工作旨在完成ALMA早期科学波段中8个“杂草”分子的光谱调查，并建立一个数据库，以减少天文光谱调查中无法识别的线的数量。这是先前工作的延续，该工作基于在每个分子的温度范围内对大约1000个强度校准的mm/亚mm光谱的分析。通过对8种主要星际杂草的研究，验证了结果的准确性。先前的结果揭示了天体物理数据库的不完整性，研究人员提供了理论解释，以表明不完整性是源温度的函数。本工作的目的是开发一种表征毫米/亚毫米分子光谱的新方法。通过分析测量温度对强度的依赖性，以及对光谱子集的量子力学分析，完成了完整光谱的表征。包括完整光谱的强度校准将大大改善光谱目录，并有助于解决毫米和亚毫米光谱中的天体物理“杂草和杂波”问题。作为该项目的一部分，研究生将接受毫米波和亚毫米波光谱实验方面的培训，并开发存档和传播结果的方法。

Dr. de Lucia and his team address the problem of the large incompleteness of millimeter and submillimeter (mm/submm) astrophysical catalogs. Theoretical work and laboratory spectra are needed to make optimal analysis of the data from ALMA and other mm/submm observatories. The work here aims to complete the spectroscopic survey of 8 "weed" molecules in the ALMA early science bands and to develop a database that will reduce the number of unidentifiable lines in astronomical spectral surveys. It is a continuation of previous work that is based on analyses of about 1000 intensity calibrated mm/submm spectra taken over a range of temperatures for each molecule. The accuracy of the results is validated by studying eight major interstellar weeds. The previous results revealed the incompleteness is the astrophysical data base and the researchers provided theoretical explanations to show the incompleteness as a function of source temperature. The objectives of this work are to develop a new approach for the characterization of mm/submm molecular spectra. Characterization of the complete spectra is done through analysis of the measured temperature dependence of intensities, together with quantum mechanical analyses for subsets of the spectra used for reference. Including the intensity calibration of complete spectra will substantially improve spectral catalogs and help to address the astrophysical "weed and clutter" problems in millimeter and submillimeter spectroscopy. As part of this project, graduate students are trained in experimental millimeter and submillimeter spectroscopy, and in developing methods for archiving and disseminating the results.