Speaker: Prof. Peter Chen (Spelman College)

Title: Exploring the Possibility of Life Beyond Our Solar System with Assistance from 2D Spectroscopy

Abstract: The James Webb Space Telescope is designed to record infrared images and infrared spectra from space beyond our solar system. Such data can be used to identify whether certain exoplanets are potentially inhabitable and whether life might exist on those planets. Two relevant and important questions are what molecules are present in the atmospheres of such planets, and what is the atmospheric temperature. For example, if the rotational-vibrational peaks in the infrared spectra of gas phase molecules are assigned, one can use their positions to identify the molecules and their relative intensities to spectroscopically measure the temperature. However, assigning rotational-vibrational peaks in infrared has long been complicated by spectral congestion, anharmonicity, and perturbations. This talk presents results from a new infrared two-dimensional spectrometer that can be used to overcome such problems. Examples will be shown where it is used to disentangle and assign rotational-vibrational peaks in difficult regions of the infrared spectrum.