Lyman continuum photons

Lyman continuum photons (abbrev. LyC), shortened to Ly continuum photons or Lyc photon, are the photons emitted from stars at energies above the Lyman limit. Hydrogen is ionized by absorbing LyC. Working off of Victor Schumann's discovery of ultraviolet light, from 1906 to 1914, Theodore Lyman observed that atomic hydrogen absorbs light only at specific frequencies (or wavelengths) and the Lyman series is thus named after him. All the wavelengths in the Lyman series are in the ultraviolet band. This quantized absorption behavior occurs only up to an energy limit, known as the ionization energy. In the case of neutral atomic hydrogen, the minimum ionization energy is equal to the Lyman limit, where the photon has enough energy to completely ionize the atom, resulting in a free proton and a free electron. Above this energy (below this wavelength), all wavelengths of light may be absorbed. This forms a continuum in the energy spectrum; the spectrum is continuous rather than composed of many discrete lines, which are seen at lower energies.