THERE IS AN INCREASING NEED FOR HIGHLY ACCURATE ROVIBRATIONAL LINE LISTS (INCLUDING INFRARED INTENSITIES) OF SMALL MOLECULES THAT ARE COMMON IN VARIOUS SOLAR SYSTEM PLANET AND MOON ENVIRONMENTS BROWN DWARFS THE INTERSTELLAR MEDIUM (ISM) AND EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES.[1] THIS IS BEING DRIVEN BY THE AVAILABILITY OF EVER INCREASINGLY HIGH-RESOLUTION TELESCOPES AND INSTRUMENTS INCLUDING SPACE-BASED SUCH AS JWST AND WFIRST PLANE-BASED SUCH AS SOFIA AND GROUND BASED SUCH AS ALMA AND SEVERAL PLANNED EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPES. IN ORDER TO MAXIMIZE THE SCIENTIFIC RETURN FOR THESE MISSIONS THE LINE LISTS NEED TO PROVIDE BOTH ACCURATE LINE POSITIONS AND LINE STRENGTHS AS WELL AS BEING COMPLETE ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO DESCRIBE THE LARGE TEMPERATURE EXTREMES OF THE DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS. ONE SUCH MOLECULE IS AMMONIA WHICH WIDELY EXISTS IN THE ISM BROWN DWARFS AND H2&HE DOMINATED EXOPLANETARY ATMOSPHERES [1] AND THUS WILL BE AN IMPORTANT DIAGNOSTIC MOLECULE IN THE CHARACTERIZATION OF ENVIRONMENTS AND EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES. THE EXISTING SPECTRAL DATABASES FOR NH3 AND ITS ISOTOPOLOGUES HITRAN [2 3 4] AND EXOMOL (BYTE) [5 6] ARE NOT SUFFICIENTLY COMPLETE OR ACCURATE TO CHARACTERIZE THE ENVIRONMENTS WHERE NH3 IS PRESENT. BUILDING ON OUR PREVIOUS WORK ON NH3[7 8 9 10] AND SUBSEQUENT WORK ON OTHER MOLECULES [11 12 13 14 15 16] AS WELL AS ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENTAL DATA WE WILL GENERATE ACCURATE AND COMPLETE LINE LISTS FOR NH3 AND ITS D&15N ISOTOPOLOGUES. THESE LINE LISTS WILL BE INVALUABLE IN MODELING THE ISM AND EXOPLANETARY ATMOSPHERES OF VARIOUS CELESTIAL OBJECTS. THE SPECTRAL LIBRARY AND DATA PRODUCTS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO THE ASTROPHYSICAL COMMUNITIES.
$720,823FY2020National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA
Seti Institute, Mountain View CA