The Carriers of the Interstellar Unidentified Infrared Emission
  Features: Constraints from the Interstellar C-H Stretching Features at
  3.2-3.5 Micrometers
  The unidentified infrared emission (UIE) features at 3.3, 6.2, 7.7, 8.6, and
11.3 micrometer, commonly attributed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)
molecules, have been recently ascribed to mixed aromatic/aliphatic organic
nanoparticles. More recently, an upper limit of <9% on the aliphatic fraction
(i.e., the fraction of carbon atoms in aliphatic form) of the UIE carriers
based on the observed intensities of the 3.4 and 3.3 micrometer emission
features by attributing them to aliphatic and aromatic C-H stretching modes,
respectively, and assuming A_34./A_3.3~0.68 derived from a small set of
aliphatic and aromatic compounds, where A_3.4 and A_3.3 are respectively the
band strengths of the 3.4 micrometer aliphatic and 3.3 micrometer aromatic C-H
bonds.
  To improve the estimate of the aliphatic fraction of the UIE carriers, here
we analyze 35 UIE sources which exhibit both the 3.3 and 3.4 micrometer C-H
features and determine I_3.4/I_3.3, the ratio of the power emitted from the 3.4
micrometer feature to that from the 3.3 micrometer feature. We derive the
median ratio to be <I_3.4/I_3.3> ~ 0.12. We employ density functional theory
and second-order perturbation theory to compute A_3.4/A_3.3 for a range of
methyl-substituted PAHs. The resulting A_3.4/A_3.3 ratio well exceeds 1.4, with
an average ratio of <A_3.4/A_3.3> ~1.76. By attributing the 3.4 micrometer
feature exclusively to aliphatic C-H stretch (i.e., neglecting anharmonicity
and superhydrogenation), we derive the fraction of C atoms in aliphatic form to
be ~2%. We therefore conclude that the UIE emitters are predominantly aromatic.
