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Description
We study the behavior of eight diffuse interstellar bands (DIBs) in different interstellar environments, as characterized by the fraction of hydrogen in molecular form (f_H2_), with comparisons to the corresponding behavior of various known atomic and molecular species. The equivalent widths of the five "normal" DIBs ({lambda}{lambda}5780.5, 5797.1, 6196.0, 6283.8, and 6613.6), normalized to E_B-V_, show a "lambda-shaped" behavior: they increase at low f_H2_, peak at f_H2_~0.3, and then decrease. The similarly normalized column densities of Ca, Ca+, Ti+, and CH+ also decline for f_H2_>0.3. In contrast, the normalized column densities of Na, K, CH, CN, and CO increase monotonically with fH2, and the trends exhibited by the three C_2_ DIBs ({lambda}{lambda}4726.8, 4963.9, and 4984.8) lie between those two general behaviors. These trends with f_H2_ are accompanied by cosmic scatter, the dispersion at any given f_H2_ being significantly larger than the individual errors of measurement. The lambda-shaped trends suggest the balance between creation and destruction of the DIB carriers differs dramatically between diffuse atomic and diffuse molecular clouds; additional processes aside from ionization and shielding are needed to explain those observed trends. Except for several special cases, the highest W{lambda}(5780)/W{lambda}(5797) ratios, characterizing the so-called "sigma-zeta effect," occur only at f_H2_<0.2. We propose a sequence of DIBs based on trends in their pair-wise strength ratios with increasing f_H2_. In order of increasing environmental density, we find the {lambda}6283.8 and {lambda}5780.5 DIBs, the {lambda}6196.0 DIB, the {lambda}6613.6 DIB, the {lambda}5797.1 DIB, and the C_2_ DIBs.
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