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S. C. Chakrabarti (UCB), Chakrabarti, McKee Collaboration
We present analytic radiative transfer solutions for the spectra of unresolved, spherically symmetric, centrally heated, dusty sources. We find that the dust thermal spectrum possesses symmetries that provide a natural classification for a broad range of sources, from low mass protostars to dusty galaxies. In particular, we find that, given our assumptions, SEDs can be characterized by two distance-independent parameters, the luminosity to mass ratio, L/M and the surface density, \Sigma, for a set of two functions, namely, the density profile and the opacity curve. The goal is to use SEDs as a diagnostic tool in inferring the large-scale physical conditions in protostellar and extragalactic sources, and ultimately, evolutionary parameters. Specifically, our approach obviates the need to use SED templates, which is a common practice in the extragalactic community that relies on observed correlations established at low redshift which may not necessarily extend to high redshift. Further, we comment on prevalent misinterpretations have resulted from the lack of a self-consistent methodology in the protostellar community, such as the assertion that density profiles can be unambiguously inferred from the SED. The functionality of our model is unique in that in provides for a self-consistent analytic solution which we have validated by comparison with a well-tested radiative transfer code to find excellent agreement with numerical results over a parameter space that spans low mass protostars to ULIRGS.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.