A Spectroscopically Calibrated Prescription for Extracting PAH Flux from JWST MIRI Imaging

Grant P. Donnelly; Thomas S. -Y. Lai; Lee Armus; Tanio Díaz-Santos; Kirsten L. Larson; Loreto Barcos-Muñoz; Marina Bianchin; Thomas Bohn; Torsten Böker; Victorine A. Buiten; Vassilis Charmandaris; Aaron S. Evans; Justin Howell; Hanae Inami; Darshan Kakkad; Laura Lenkić; Sean T. Linden; Cristina M. Lofaro; Matthew A. Malkan; Anne M. Medling; George C. Privon; Claudio Ricci; J. D. T. Smith; Yiqing Song; Sabrina Stierwalt; Paul P. van der Werf; Vivian U

arXiv · 2501.19397

A Spectroscopically Calibrated Prescription for Extracting PAH Flux from JWST MIRI Imaging

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Abstract

We introduce a prescription for estimating the flux of the 7.7 micron and 11.3 micron\ polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) features from broadband JWST/MIRI images. Probing PAH flux with MIRI imaging data has advantages in field of view, spatial resolution, and sensitivity compared with MIRI spectral maps, but comparisons with spectra are needed to calibrate these flux estimations over a wide variety of environments. For 267 MIRI/MRS spectra from independent regions in the four luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) in the Great Observatories All-sky LIRG Survey (GOALS) early release science program, we derive synthetic filter photometry and directly compare estimated PAH fluxes to those measured from detailed spectral fits. We find that for probing PAH 7.7 micron, the best combination of filters is F560W, F770W, and either F1500W or F2100W, and the best for PAH 11.3 micron is F560W, F1000W, F1130W, and F1500W. The prescription with these combinations yields predicted flux densities that typically agree with values from spectral decomposition within ~7% and ~5% for PAH 7.7 and 11.3 micron, respectively.

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Grant P. Donnelly, Thomas S. -Y. Lai, Lee Armus, Tanio Díaz-Santos, Kirsten L. Larson, Loreto Barcos-Muñoz, Marina Bianchin, Thomas Bohn, Torsten Böker, Victorine A. Buiten, Vassilis Charmandaris, Aaron S. Evans, Justin Howell, Hanae Inami, Darshan Kakkad, Laura Lenkić, Sean T. Linden, Cristina M. Lofaro, Matthew A. Malkan, Anne M. Medling, George C. Privon, Claudio Ricci, J. D. T. Smith, Yiqing Song, Sabrina Stierwalt, Paul P. van der Werf, Vivian U. 2025-01-31. A Spectroscopically Calibrated Prescription for Extracting PAH Flux from JWST MIRI Imaging. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.19397

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