The Herschel SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer Spectral Feature Finder – IV. Neutral carbon detection in the SPIRE FTS spectra

Abstract

ABSTRACT The SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer (FTS) Spectral Feature Finder (FF), developed within the Herschel Spectral and Photometric Imaging Receiver (SPIRE) FTS instrument team, is an automated spectral feature fitting routine that attempts to find significant features in SPIRE FTS spectra. The 3P1–3P0 and 3P2–3P1 neutral carbon fine structure lines are common features in carbon-rich far-infrared astrophysical sources. These features can be difficult to detect using an automated feature detection routine due to their typically low amplitude and line blending. In this paper, we describe and validate the FF subroutine designed to detect the neutral carbon emission observed in SPIRE spectral data.