Estimating PAH Emission from JWST Imaging

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) are astrophysically interesting (small) dust grains that emit a significant amount of energy in the near and mid-infrared. The James Webb Space Telescope can observe PAH features using its integral field units (IFUs), but these can only observe small regions of the sky at a time. In “A Spectroscopically Calibrated Prescription for Extracting PAH Flux from JWST MIRI Imaging” (Donnelley+) we use JWST/MIRI imaging (that covers a wider view of the sky) along with JWST/MIRI IFU observations to develop prescriptions that use broadband imaging observations to robustly estimate the fluxes of PAH features at 7.7 and 11.3 micron wavelengths. These prescriptions facilitate the study of PAHs across wider areas of galaxies, where obtaining IFU observations may be time-prohibitive.

The paper has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal and a preprint is available at the link above.