What determines the grain size distribution in galaxies?

Asano, Ryosuke; Takeuchi, Tsutomu T.; Hirashita, Hiroyuki; Nozawa, Takaya

doi:10.1093/mnras/stt506

Cited by 148 publications

(220 citation statements)

References 61 publications

(127 reference statements)

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“…This does not imply by necessity that these n = 15-40 sized clusters are not present, but at least they are not abundant enough to leave any spectral imprint. A variety of processes including dust production in type II supernovae and AGB stars, dust destruction by supernova shocks, grain growth, and grain-grain collisions determine the grain size distribution in the interstellar medium of galaxies (Asano et al 2013). Shattering is crucial in producing small grains ( < ∼ 0.01 µm).…”

Section: Discussion: Indication For the Presence Of Aluminium Oxide Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of the aluminium content in AGB winds using ALMA

Decin

Richards

Waters

et al. 2017

A&A

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Context. The condensation of inorganic dust grains in the winds of evolved stars is poorly understood. As of today, it is not yet known which molecular clusters form the first dust grains in oxygen-rich (C/O < 1) asymptotic giant branch (AGB) winds. Aluminium oxides and iron-free silicates are often put forward as promising candidates for the first dust seeds. Aims. We aim to constrain the dust formation histories in the winds of oxygen-rich AGB stars. Methods. We obtained Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter array (ALMA) observations with a spatial resolution of 120 × 150 mas tracing the dust formation region of the low mass-loss rate AGB star, R Dor, and the high mass-loss rate AGB star, IK Tau. We detected emission line profiles of AlO, AlOH, and AlCl in the ALMA data and used these line profiles to derive a lower limit of atomic aluminium incorporated in molecules. This constrains the aluminium budget that can condense into grains. Results. Radiative transfer models constrain the fractional abundances of AlO, AlOH, and AlCl in IK Tau and R Dor. We show that the gas-phase aluminium chemistry is completely different in both stars with a remarkable difference in the AlO and AlOH abundance stratification. The amount of aluminium locked up in these three molecules is small, ≤1.1 × 10 −7 w.r.t. H 2 , for both stars, i.e. only ≤2% of the total aluminium budget. An important result is that AlO and AlOH, which are the direct precursors of alumina (Al 2 O 3 ) grains, are detected well beyond the onset of the dust condensation, which proves that the aluminium oxide condensation cycle is not fully efficient. The ALMA observations allow us to quantitatively assess the current generation of theoretical dynamical-chemical models for AGB winds. We discuss how the current proposed scenario of aluminium dust condensation for low mass-loss rate AGB stars within a few stellar radii from the star, in particular for R Dor and W Hya, poses a challenge if one wishes to explain both the dust spectral features in the spectral energy distribution (SED) in interferometric data and in the polarized light signal. In particular, the estimated grain temperature of Al 2 O 3 is too high for the grains to retain their amorphous structure. We advocate that large gas-phase (Al 2 O 3 ) n clusters (n > 34) can be the potential agents of the broad 11 µm feature in the SED and in the interferometric data and we propose potential formation mechanisms for these large clusters.

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Section: Discussion: Indication For the Presence Of Aluminium Oxide Cmentioning

confidence: 99%

Study of the aluminium content in AGB winds using ALMA

Decin

Richards

Waters

et al. 2017

A&A

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…In their calculation, dust formed in stellar ejecta, that is, supernovae (SNe) and asymptotic giant branch (AGB) star winds, dominate the grain size distribution at the early stage of galactic evolution (Bianchi & Schneider 2007;Nozawa et al 2007;Valiante et al 2009;Gall et al 2011;Yasuda & Kozasa 2012). Asano et al (2013) assumed that these stellar sources form large (∼ 0.1 µm) grains, based on theoretical and observational evidence (see section 2.1 of H15 and Section 2.1 of the present paper). Thus, the dust is dominated by large grains at the early stage of galaxy evolution.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dust evolution processes constrained by extinction curves in nearby galaxies

Hou

Hirashita

Michałowski

2016

Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan

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Extinction curves, especially those in the Milky Way (MW), the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), and the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), have provided us with a clue to the dust properties in the nearby Universe. We examine whether or not these extinction curves can be explained by well known dust evolution processes. We treat the dust production in stellar ejecta, destruction in supernova shocks, dust growth by accretion and coagulation, and dust disruption by shattering. To make a survey of the large parameter space possible, we simplify the treatment of the grain size distribution evolution by adopting the 'two-size approximation', in which we divide the grain population into small ( < ∼ 0.03 µm) and large ( > ∼ 0.03 µm) grains. It is confirmed that the MW extinction curve can be reproduced in reasonable ranges for the time-scale of the above processes with a silicate-graphite mixture. This indicates that the MW extinction curve is a natural consequence of the dust evolution through the above processes. We also find that the same models fail to reproduce the SMC/LMC extinction curves. Nevertheless, this failure can be remedied by giving higher supernova destruction rates for small carbonaceous dust and considering amorphous carbon for carbonaceous dust; these modification fall in fact in line with previous studies. Therefore, we conclude that the current dust evolution scenario composed of the aforementioned processes is successful in explaining the extinction curves. All the extinction curves favor efficient interstellar processing of dust, especially, strong grain growth by accretion and coagulation.

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“…The time evolution of dust and physical correlations between dust properties and other galaxy properties (e.g., gas-phase abundances) have long been investigated mainly by one-zone or multi-zone chemical evolution models (e.g., Dwek & Scalo 1979, 1980Dwek 1998, D98;Lisenfeld & Ferrara 1998;Hirashita 1999;Edmunds 2001;Inoue 2003;Calura et al 2008;Asano et al 2013;Zhukovska & Henning 2013). Owing to the lack of spatial resolution in these models, two-dimensional distributions of dust properties in galaxies were not investigated in the models, though they already discussed a few dust scaling relations (e.g., A O -D correlation).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmic Evolution of Dust in Galaxies: Methods and Preliminary Results

Bekki

2015

ApJ

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We investigate the redshift (z) evolution of dust mass and abundance, their dependences on initial conditions of galaxy formation, and physical correlations between dust, gas, and stellar contents at different z based on our original chemodynamical simulations of galaxy formation with dust growth and destruction. In this preliminary investigation, we first determine the reasonable ranges of the most important two parameters for dust evolution, i.e., the timescales of dust growth and destruction, by comparing the observed and simulated dust mass and abundances and molecular hydrogen (H 2 ) content of the Galaxy. We then investigate the z-evolution of dust-to-gas ratios (D), H 2 gas fraction (f H 2 ), and gas-phase chemical abundances (e.g., A O = 12 + log(O/H)) in the simulated disk and dwarf galaxies. The principal results are as follows. Both D and f H 2 can rapidly increase during the early dissipative formation of galactic disks (z ∼ 2-3), and the z-evolution of these depends on initial mass densities, spin parameters, and masses of galaxies. The observed A O -D relation can be qualitatively reproduced, but the simulated dispersion of D at a given A O is smaller. The simulated galaxies with larger total dust masses show larger H 2 and stellar masses and higher f H 2 . Disk galaxies show negative radial gradients of D and the gradients are steeper for more massive galaxies. The observed evolution of dust masses and dust-to-stellar-mass ratios between z = 0 and 0.4 cannot be reproduced so well by the simulated disks. Very extended dusty gaseous halos can be formed during hierarchical buildup of disk galaxies. Dust-to-metal ratios (i.e., dust-depletion levels) are different within a single galaxy and between different galaxies at different z.

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What determines the grain size distribution in galaxies?

Cited by 148 publications

References 61 publications

Study of the aluminium content in AGB winds using ALMA

Study of the aluminium content in AGB winds using ALMA

Dust evolution processes constrained by extinction curves in nearby galaxies

Cosmic Evolution of Dust in Galaxies: Methods and Preliminary Results

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