Laboratory Astrophysics

Description

This book focuses on the most recent, relevant, comprehensive and significant aspects in the well-established multidisciplinary field Laboratory Astrophysics. It focuses on astrophysical environments, which include asteroids, comets, the interstellar medium, and circumstellar and circumplanetary regions. Its scope lies between physics and chemistry, since it explores physical properties of the gas, ice, and dust present in those systems, as well as chemical reactions occurring in the gas phase, the bare dust surface, or in the ice bulk and its surface. Each chapter provides the necessary mathematical background to understand the subject, followed by a case study of the corresponding system. The book provides adequate material to help interpret the observations, or the computer models of astrophysical environments. It introduces and describes the use of spectroscopic tools for laboratory astrophysics. This book is mainly addressed to PhD graduates working in this field or observers and modelers searching for information on ice and dust processes. Front Matter ....Pages i-xii Front Matter ....Pages 1-1 Dust and Ice in the Interstellar Medium (Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro)....Pages 3-14 Icy Grains in the Solar System: Cometary and Asteroidal Environments (Fernando Moreno)....Pages 15-26 Introduction to Spectroscopy and Astronomical Observations (Rafael Escribano, Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro)....Pages 27-47 Front Matter ....Pages 49-49 Density of Ices of Astrophysical Interest (Miguel Ángel Satorre, Ramón Luna, Carlos Millán, Manuel Domingo, Carmina Santonja)....Pages 51-69 Infrared Optical Constants and Band Strengths of Ices (Belén Maté)....Pages 71-86 Quantum Chemical Description of Solids: DFT Approach (Oscar Gálvez Gálvez)....Pages 87-94 Monte Carlo Simulations of the Formation and Morphology of Interstellar Ices (Stéphanie Cazaux, Jean Baptiste Bossa, Rafael Martin-Doménech, Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro, Yu-Jung Chen, Harold Linnartz et al.)....Pages 95-110 Front Matter ....Pages 111-111 Infrared Spectroscopy and Programmed Thermal Desorption of Ice Mixtures (Rafael Martín-Doménech, Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro)....Pages 113-132 Photon-Induced Desorption Processes in Astrophysical Ices (Guillermo M. Muñoz Caro, Rafael Martín Doménech)....Pages 133-147 Thermal Reactivity Dynamics in Interstellar Ice (Patrice Theulé, Jennifer A. Noble, Pierre Ghesquière)....Pages 149-155 Front Matter ....Pages 157-157 Spectroscopy of Interstellar Carbonaceous Dust (Víctor J. Herrero, Belén Maté, Germán Molpeceres, Miguel Jiménez-Redondo, Isabel Tanarro)....Pages 159-171 Light Scattered by Cosmic Dust at Visible Wavelengths (Jesús Escobar-Cerezo, Olga Muñoz, Fernando Moreno)....Pages 173-193 Infrared Spectroscopy of Ions of Astrophysical Interest (José-Luis Doménech)....Pages 195-216 Front Matter ....Pages 217-217 Interstellar Chemical Models (Marcelino Agúndez)....Pages 219-232 Back Matter ....Pages 233-237