Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 March 2011
Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are widespread across the Universe and influencemany stages of the Galactic lifecycle. The presence of PAHs has been well established andthe rich mid-IR PAH spectrum is now commonly used as a probe into (inter)stellarenvironments. The NASA Ames PAH IR Spectroscopic Database has been key to test and refinethe “PAH hypothesis”. This database is a large coherent set (>600 spectra) oflaboratory measured and DFT computed infrared spectra of PAHs fromC10H8 to C130H28 and has been made availableon the web at (http://www.astrochem.org/pahdb). With a new spectral window opening up; thefar-IR, the study of PAH far-IR spectra and the quest for identifying aunique member of the interstellar PAH family has begun. To guide this research, the far-IR(>20 μm) spectra of different sets of PAHs are investigatedusing the NASA Ames PAH IR Spectroscopic Database. These sets explore the influence ofsize, shape, charge and composition on the far-IR PAH spectrum. The far-IR is also thedomain of the so-called “drumhead” modes and other molecular vibrations involving loworder bending vibrations of the carbon skeleton as a whole. As with drums, these aremolecule and shape specific and promise to be a key diagnostic for specific PAHs. Here,the sensitivity of these “drumhead” modes to size and shape is assessed by comparing thefrequencies of the lowest drumhead modes of a family of circular shaped (the coronene“family”) and rhombus shaped (the pyrene “family”) PAH molecules. From this study, someconsequences for an observing strategy are drawn.