A Case Against Spinning PAHs as the Source of the Anomalous Microwave Emission

Understand

We employ an all-sky map of the anomalous microwave emission (AME) produced by component separation of the microwave sky to study correlations between the AME and Galactic dust properties.

• We find that while the AME is highly correlated with all tracers of dust emission, the best predictor of the AME strength is the dust radiance.
• Fluctuations in the AME intensity per dust radiance are uncorrelated with fluctuations in the emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), casting doubt on the association between AME and PAHs.
• The PAH abundance is strongly correlated with the dust optical depth and dust radiance, consistent with PAH destruction in low density regions.