A search for interstellar anthracene toward the Perseus anomalous
  microwave emission region
  We report the discovery of a new broad interstellar (or circumstellar) band
at 7088.8 +- 2.0 \AA coincident to within the measurement uncertainties with
the strongest band of the anthracene cation (C$_{14}$H$_{10}$$^+$) as measured
in gas-phase laboratory spectroscopy at low temperatures (Sukhorukov et
al.2004). The band is detected in the line of sight of star Cernis 52, a likely
member of the very young star cluster IC 348, and is probably associated with
cold absorbing material in a intervening molecular cloud of the Perseus star
forming region where various experiments have recently detected anomalous
microwave emission. From the measured intensity and available oscillator
strength we find a column density of N$_{an^+}$= 1.1(+-0.4) x 10$^{13}$
cm$^{-2}$ implying that ~0.008% of the carbon in the cloud could be in the form
of C$_{14}$H$_{10}$$^+$. A similar abundance has been recently claimed for the
naphthalene cation (Iglesias-Groth et al. 2008) in this cloud. This is the
first location outside the Solar System where specific PAHs are identified. We
report observations of interstellar lines of CH and CH$^+$ that support a
rather high column density for these species and for molecular hydrogen. The
strength ratio of the two prominent diffuse interstellar bands at 5780 and 5797
\AA suggests the presence of a ``zeta'' type cloud in the line of sight
(consistent with steep far-UV extinction and high molecular content). The
presence of PAH cations and other related hydrogenated carbon molecules which
are likely to occur in this type of clouds reinforce the suggestion that
electric dipole radiation from fast spinning PAHs is responsible of the
anomalous microwave emission detected toward Perseus.
