A Dusty Locale: Evolution of Galactic Dust Populations from Milky Way to Dwarf-Mass Galaxies

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Auteurs principaux: Choban, Caleb R., Kereš, Dušan, Sandstrom, Karin M., Hopkins, Philip F., Hayward, Christopher C., Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Choban, Caleb R.
Kereš, Dušan
Sandstrom, Karin M.
Hopkins, Philip F.
Hayward, Christopher C.
Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André
author_facet Choban, Caleb R.
Kereš, Dušan
Sandstrom, Karin M.
Hopkins, Philip F.
Hayward, Christopher C.
Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André
contents Observations indicate dust populations vary between galaxies and within them, suggesting a complex life cycle and evolutionary history. Here we investigate the evolution of galactic dust populations across cosmic time using a suite of cosmological zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project, spanning $M_{\rm vir}=10^{9-12}M_{\odot};\,M_{*}=10^{6-11}\,M_{\odot}$. Our simulations incorporate a dust evolution model that accounts for the dominant sources of dust production, growth, and destruction and follows the evolution of specific dust species. All galactic dust populations in our suite exhibit similar evolutionary histories, with gas-dust accretion being the dominant producer of dust mass for all but the most metal-poor galaxies. Similar to previous works, we find the onset of efficient gas-dust accretion occurs above a `critical' metallicity threshold ($Z_{\rm crit}$). Due to this threshold, our simulations reproduce observed trends between galactic D/Z and metallicity and element depletion trends in the ISM. However, we find $Z_{\rm crit}$ varies between dust species due to differences in key element abundances, dust physical properties, and life cycle processes resulting in $Z_{\rm crit}\sim0.05Z_{\odot},\,0.2Z_{\odot},\,0.5Z_{\odot}$ for metallic iron, silicates, and carbonaceous dust, respectively. These variations could explain the lack of small carbonaceous grains observed in the Magellanic Clouds. We also find a delay between the onset of gas-dust accretion and when a dust population reaches equilibrium, which we call the equilibrium timescale ($τ_{\rm eq}$). The relation between $τ_{\rm eq}$ and the metal enrichment timescale of a galaxy, determined by its recent evolutionary history, can contribute to the scatter in the observed relation between galactic D/Z and metallicity.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_04766
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Dusty Locale: Evolution of Galactic Dust Populations from Milky Way to Dwarf-Mass Galaxies
Choban, Caleb R.
Kereš, Dušan
Sandstrom, Karin M.
Hopkins, Philip F.
Hayward, Christopher C.
Faucher-Giguère, Claude-André
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Observations indicate dust populations vary between galaxies and within them, suggesting a complex life cycle and evolutionary history. Here we investigate the evolution of galactic dust populations across cosmic time using a suite of cosmological zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project, spanning $M_{\rm vir}=10^{9-12}M_{\odot};\,M_{*}=10^{6-11}\,M_{\odot}$. Our simulations incorporate a dust evolution model that accounts for the dominant sources of dust production, growth, and destruction and follows the evolution of specific dust species. All galactic dust populations in our suite exhibit similar evolutionary histories, with gas-dust accretion being the dominant producer of dust mass for all but the most metal-poor galaxies. Similar to previous works, we find the onset of efficient gas-dust accretion occurs above a `critical' metallicity threshold ($Z_{\rm crit}$). Due to this threshold, our simulations reproduce observed trends between galactic D/Z and metallicity and element depletion trends in the ISM. However, we find $Z_{\rm crit}$ varies between dust species due to differences in key element abundances, dust physical properties, and life cycle processes resulting in $Z_{\rm crit}\sim0.05Z_{\odot},\,0.2Z_{\odot},\,0.5Z_{\odot}$ for metallic iron, silicates, and carbonaceous dust, respectively. These variations could explain the lack of small carbonaceous grains observed in the Magellanic Clouds. We also find a delay between the onset of gas-dust accretion and when a dust population reaches equilibrium, which we call the equilibrium timescale ($τ_{\rm eq}$). The relation between $τ_{\rm eq}$ and the metal enrichment timescale of a galaxy, determined by its recent evolutionary history, can contribute to the scatter in the observed relation between galactic D/Z and metallicity.
title A Dusty Locale: Evolution of Galactic Dust Populations from Milky Way to Dwarf-Mass Galaxies
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.04766