Dust survival rates in clumps passing through the Cas A reverse shock – I. Results for a range of clump densities

Abstract

The reverse shock in the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae is potentially able to destroy newly formed dust material. In order to determine dust survival rates, we have performed a set of hydrodynamic simulations using the grid-based code AstroBEAR in order to model a shock wave interacting with clumpy supernova ejecta. Dust motions and destruction rates were computed using our newly developed external, postprocessing code Paperboats, which includes gas drag, grain charging, sputtering and grain-grain collisions. We have determined dust destruction rates for the oxygen-rich supernova remnant Cassiopeia A as a function of initial grain sizes and clump gas density. We found that up to 30 % of the carbon dust mass is able to survive the passage of the reverse shock if the initial grain size distribution is narrow with radii around ∼ 10 − 50 nm for high gas densities, or with radii around ∼ 0.5 − 1.5 µm for low and medium gas densities. Silicate grains with initial radii around 10 − 30 nm show survival rates of up to 40 % for medium and high density contrasts, while silicate material with micron sized distributions is mostly destroyed. For both materials, the surviving dust mass is rearranged into a new size distribution that can be approximated by two components: a power-law distribution of small grains and a log-normal distribution of grains having the same size range as the initial distribution. Our results show that grain-grain collisions and sputtering are synergistic and that grain-grain collisions can play a crucial role in determining the surviving dust budget in supernova remnants.

Dust masses and grain size distributions of a sample of Galactic pulsar wind nebulae

“…The grains would also be more resistant to subsequent destruction in the ISM. However, this assumes the dust is destroyed only by sputtering -for large grains, grain-grain collisions may be a significant additional destruction mechanism (Kirchschlager et al 2019).…”

“…Models of dust destruction in SNRs predict a wide range of survival rates, from complete destruction to almost total survival, depending on assumptions about the thermal and dynamical evolution of the gas, the grain size distribution and whether the dust is located in clumps (Bianchi & Schneider 2007;Silvia, Smith & Shull 2010;Biscaro & Cherchneff 2016;Bocchio et al 2016;Kirchschlager et al 2019). Nozawa et al (2007) found that grains with sizes 0.05 μm are destroyed completely by sputtering, whereas larger grains with a 0.2 μm survive into the ISM.…”

JINGLE – IV. Dust, H i gas, and metal scaling laws in the local Universe

“…Models I and II suggest that a significant fraction (37 to 89%) of freshly condensed supernova dust is able to survive the reverse shock. Dust evolution models that include the effects of sputtering and/or shattering on supernova dust grains due to the passage of a reverse shock estimate dust survival rates ranging from 1 to 100% (e.g., Bianchi & Schneider 2007;Nozawa et al 2007;Nath et al 2008;Silvia et al 2010;Sarangi & Cherchneff 2015;Biscaro & Cherchneff 2016;Bocchio et al 2016;Micelotta et al 2016;Kirchschlager et al 2019). An easy comparison between these various models is hampered by the different assumptions made to describe the ambient densities, the density contrast between dust clumps and the surrounding medium, the grain size distribution and the composition of supernova dust species.…”

“…There is a large uncertainty inherent to the efficiency of reverse shock dust destruction, due to its dependence on the grain size and composition, the clumpiness of the dust distribution in the supernova ejecta, and the reverse shock velocity (which is set by the ambient circum-and interstellar densities). Values have been quoted ranging from a few percent to 100% dust destruction efficiencies (e.g., Bianchi & Schneider 2007;Silvia et al 2010;Bocchio et al 2016;Kirchschlager et al 2019). Rather than fixing the survival fraction of supernova dust for destruction by the reverse shock, we implement the reverse shock dust destruction efficiency as a free parameter (f survival ) of our model.…”

Silicate Grain Growth due to Ion Trapping in Oxygen-rich Supernova Remnants like Cassiopeia A

“…Software:Paperboats (Kirchschlager et al 2019), Astro-BEAR (Carroll-Nellenback et al 2013), UCL HPC RC cluster GRACE, Peta4-Skylake (DiRAC project;www.dirac.ac.uk).…”