Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and the Extinction Curve

¹ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica – Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari – strada 54, località Poggio dei Pini, 09012 – Capoterra ( CA )
² Université de Toulouse, UPS, CESR, 9 Av. colonel Roche, 31028 Toulouse Cedex 4, France
³ CNRS, UMR 5187, 31028 Toulouse, France

Abstract

Aromatic carbon, in some form, has been an essential ingredient by and large in all models of the extinction curve, since the original proposal to attribute the bump at 217.5 nm to “astronomical graphite”. This aromatic carbon is most naturally identified, in up to date models, with a population of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), free and/or clustered. In all models, this PAH population accounts for the far–UV nonlinear rise in the extinction curve, contributes to the bump and possibly part of the large set of unidentified, discrete absorption features in the visible (the Diffuse Interstellar Bands). We review the current state of our understanding of the contribution of PAHs to interstellar extinction, and what constraints can be imposed on the PAH population by fitting extinction models to observations.