The Rise and Fall of Dust in the Universe

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Eales, Stephen, Ward, Bradley
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Eales, Stephen
Ward, Bradley
author_facet Eales, Stephen
Ward, Bradley
contents We estimate how the mean density of dust in the universe varies with redshift, using submillimetre continuum observations and a method designed to minimise the effect of dust temperature. We have used the Herschel-ATLAS to show that the median temperature of dust in galaxies is ~22 K and does not vary significantly with redshift out to z=1. With this as our estimate of the mass-weighted dust temperature, we have used an 850-micron survey of the COSMOS field to estimate the mean density of dust in 10 redshift bins over the range 0 < z < 5.5. We find that the mean density of dust increased by a factor of ~10 from z=5 to z=2, declined slightly to z=1, and then steeply to the present day. The relationship between the mean density of dust and redshift is similar to the relationship between the mean star-formation rate and redshift, although the increase for the former is steeper from z=5 to z=2. We have also used the submillimetre measurements to estimate the mean density of gas over the same redshift range. The values we estimate for the dust-traced gas are much lower and with a different redshift dependence than estimates of the mean density of atomic gas but similar to estimates of the mean density of the CO-traced gas. We find that the depletion time for the dust-traced gas in the universe as a whole declines with redshift in the same way seen for individual galaxies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_05181
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Rise and Fall of Dust in the Universe
Eales, Stephen
Ward, Bradley
Astrophysics of Galaxies
We estimate how the mean density of dust in the universe varies with redshift, using submillimetre continuum observations and a method designed to minimise the effect of dust temperature. We have used the Herschel-ATLAS to show that the median temperature of dust in galaxies is ~22 K and does not vary significantly with redshift out to z=1. With this as our estimate of the mass-weighted dust temperature, we have used an 850-micron survey of the COSMOS field to estimate the mean density of dust in 10 redshift bins over the range 0 < z < 5.5. We find that the mean density of dust increased by a factor of ~10 from z=5 to z=2, declined slightly to z=1, and then steeply to the present day. The relationship between the mean density of dust and redshift is similar to the relationship between the mean star-formation rate and redshift, although the increase for the former is steeper from z=5 to z=2. We have also used the submillimetre measurements to estimate the mean density of gas over the same redshift range. The values we estimate for the dust-traced gas are much lower and with a different redshift dependence than estimates of the mean density of atomic gas but similar to estimates of the mean density of the CO-traced gas. We find that the depletion time for the dust-traced gas in the universe as a whole declines with redshift in the same way seen for individual galaxies.
title The Rise and Fall of Dust in the Universe
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.05181