Laboratory Atomic Transition Data for Precise Optical Quasar Absorption Spectroscopy

Brief description

Laboratory atomic data for fitting quasar absorption line spectra with the "Many Multiplet" method for constraining cosmological variations in the fine-structure constant. This dataset provides a continuously-updated version of the laboratory atomic transition data presented in Murphy & Berengut (2014), Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 438, Issue 1, p.388-411. (arXiv:1311.2949)

Full description

It provides all details of the calculations involved in reproducing all the information in that paper in a transparent and reproducible way.

Data Extent:

• Master spreadsheet, MMatomdat.ods, in OpenDocument format, and exported .xlsx version, containing all data and calculations performed to produce the atomic data tables. The 'Description' tab of this spreadsheet is the first point of introduction for this database.

• The associated CSV, ASCII and LaTeX tables, and the figures, created by the actions explained in the README.txt file.

• A README.txt file which explains how to convert the master spreadsheet into useful CSV files and LaTeX tables of the transitions of each element and the Figures 1–11 in Murphy & Berengut (2014).

•  New input atomic data files for use in the absorption profile fitting code VPFIT (http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~rfc/vpfit.html). These files have the atomic data updated for "Many Multiplet" (MM) transitions in the Summary tables of MMatomdat.ods:
  • MM_VPFIT_[VERSION_DATE]_noiso.dat: Composite wavelengths are used for MM transitions, except for AlIII and MnII which have such widely-spaced hyperfine structure that using only composite wavelengths lead to systematic errors in most analyses.
  • MM_VPFIT_[VERSION_DATE].dat: Full isotopic and hyperfine structures for all MM transitions.
  These files were derived from the "atom.dat" distributed in VPFIT Version 10, accessed on 2011-09-05. That file is included in this directory for reference ('VPFIT10_atom_2011-09-05.dat').

Associated Grants:

This dataset was funded by an ARC Discovery Project administered by Swinburne University of Technology - DP110100866: Murphy M.T., Molaro P., Davis T., Berengut J.C., "Fundamental physics in distant galaxies".