A Search for Spectral Features in the Submillimeter Background Radiation
Abstract
We have made mountaintop observations at 1 percent spectral resolution of atmospheric and sky emission in the frequency region p = 14 . No emission features were found which can be related to the diffuse, isotropic flux F6 = 1.3 X 10 W reported from rocket and balloon experiments. We can thus set a lower limit to the spectral width of any feature responsible for F6. This limit varies from 0.25 (for p = 13.5 cm-1) to 0.5 (for p < 10 cm-1), and is equal to 0.4 over most of the regiGn. Since we exclude the possibility that the radiation lies in a single narrow line such as might arise from a maser process in the upper atmosphere, our observations seem to require an extraterrestrial origin for F6.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal
- Pub Date:
- December 1971
- DOI:
- 10.1086/180841
- Bibcode:
- 1971ApJ...170L..59M