Related papers: New views on the diffuse interstellar bands
So far, high resolution techniques on the one hand provide morphological information on bright nearby objects. On the other hand, telescopes with large collecting areas allow us to detect very faint and distant objects, but not to obtain a…
Context. The identification of the carriers of diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) remains one of the long-standing mysteries in astronomy. The detection of a polarisation signal in a DIB profile can be used to distinguish between a dust or…
A simple analytic model is presented to predict the near-IR H2 fluorescent line intensities emitted by diffuse interstellar clouds with a Plummer density profile. It is applicable to sightlines where (1) the column densities of H and H2…
High resolution stellar spectroscopic surveys provide massive amounts of diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) measurements. Data can be used to study the distribution of the DIB carriers and those environmental conditions that favor their…
Nine lectures reviewing the astrophysics of dust in interstellar clouds. Topics include: (1) Summary of observational evidence concerning interstellar dust: broadband extinction, scattering of starlight, polarization of starlight,…
Observations of interstellar gas-phase and solid-state species in the 2.4-200 micron range obtained with the spectrometers on board the Infrared Space Observatory are reviewed. Lines and bands due to ices, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,…
With the increasing number of experiments dedicated to the observation of the Cosmic Microwave Background, interest on the detailed properties of the foreground Galactic emission has risen. In particular the focus is shifting towards…
The cosmic infrared background from galaxies should have a minimum fluctuation of the order of 10\% on angular scales probed by the DIRBE (Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment) on board COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer). We present the…
Our view on the deep universe has been so far biased towards optically bright galaxies. Now, the measurement of the Cosmic Infrared Background in FIRAS and DIRBE residuals, and the observations of FIR/submm sources by the ISOPHOT and SCUBA…
Published interpretations of the relative intensity variations of the Unidentified Infrared Bands (UIBs) and their underlying continuum are discussed. An alternative model is proposed, in which a single carrier for both emits a) mostly a…
We review recent advances in our understanding of the innermost regions of the circumstellar environment around young stars, made possible by the technique of long baseline interferometry at infrared wavelengths. Near-infrared observations…
The discovery of the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) in 1996, together with recent cosmological surveys from the mid-infrared to the millimeter have revolutionized our view of star formation at high redshifts. It has become clear, in the…
We present a review of the interplay between the evolution of circumstellar disks and the formation of planets, both from the perspective of theoretical models and dedicated observations. Based on this, we identify and discuss fundamental…
The optical/near-IR stellar continuum carries unique information about the stellar population in a galaxy, its mass function and star-formation history. Star-forming regions display rich emission-line spectra from which we can derive the…
We report near-infrared (IR) observations of high Galactic latitude clouds to investigate diffuse Galactic light (DGL), which is starlight scattered by interstellar dust grains. The observations were performed at $1.1$ and $1.6\,\rm{\mu m}$…
Starbursts are a significant component of the present-day universe, and offer unique laboratories for studying the processes that have regulated the formation and evolution of galaxies and the intergalactic medium. The combination of large…
The current weak lensing measurements of the large scale structure are mostly related to statistical study of background galaxy ellipticities. We consider a possibility to extend lensing studies with intrinsically unresolved sources and…
While the cosmic microwave background (CMB) dipole is largely assumed entirely kinematic, there appears evidence that a part of it is primordial. Such possibility arises in models implying a tilt, interpreted as a dark flow, across the…
If the background universe is observed through a significant amount of diffusely distributed foreground dust, then studies at optical wavelengths may be severely biased. Previous studies investigating effects of foreground dust on…
We have detected a broad interstellar absorption band centred close to 7700 \r{A} and with a FWHM of 176.6$\pm$3.9 \r{A}. This is the first such absorption band detected in the optical range and is significantly wider than the numerous…