A framework for resolving the origin, nature and evolution of the diffuse interstellar band carriers?

Abstract

The carriers of the diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) still remain an unknown commodity. Both dust and molecules have been suggested as carriers but none proposed have yet been able to explain the nature and the diversity of the DIBs. Hence, it is perhaps time to review the problem in terms of the intermediate-sized nano-particles. It is here proposed that the DIB carriers are the nm-sized and sub-nm-sized products of the UV photo-fragmentation of hydrogenated amorphous carbon grains, a-C(:H), and their heteroatom-doped variants, a-C:H:X (where X may be O, N, Mg, Si, Fe, S, Ni, P, …). An interstellar hydrogenated amorphous carbon dust evolutionary framework is described within which a solution to the age-old DIB problem could perhaps be found.