Stellar Evolutionary Effects on the Abundances of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons and Supernova-Condensed Dust in Galaxies

By F. Galliano, E. Dwek, P. Chanial. 2007

172 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Spectral and photometric observations of nearby galaxies show a correlation between the strength of their mid-IR aromatic features, attributed to PAH molecules, and their metal abundances, leading to a deficiency of these features in low-metallicity galaxies. In this paper we suggest that the observed correlation represents a trend of PAH abundance with galactic age, reflecting the delayed injection of carbon dust into the ISM by AGB stars in the final post-AGB phase of their evolution. AGB stars are the primary sources of PAHs and carbon dust in galaxies, and recycle their ejecta back to the ISM after only a few hundred million years of evolution on the main sequence. In contrast, more massive stars that explode as Type II supernovae inject their metals and dust almost instantaneously after their formation. We first determined the PAH abundance in galaxies by constructing detailed models of UV-to-radio SEDs of galaxies that estimate the contribution of dust in PAH-free H II regions, and of PAHs and dust in photodissociation regions, to the IR emission. All model components, the galaxies’ stellar content, the properties of their H II regions, and their ionizing and nonionizing radiation fields and dust abundances, are constrained by their observed multiwavelength spectra. After determining the PAH and dust abundances in 35 nearby galaxies using our SED model, we use a chemical evolution model to show that the delayed injection of carbon dust by AGB stars provides a natural explanation for the dependence of the PAH content in galaxies on metallicity. We also show that larger dust particles giving rise to the far-IR emission follow a distinct evolutionary trend closely related to the injection of dust by massive stars into the ISM.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/717290a8ccf032d60cf8034c6cf6b8db216f9639

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. P. V. van Dokkum
2. C. Conroy
3. M. Franx
4. Mark Dickinson
5. P. Hopkins
6. Naveen A. Reddy
7. I. Labbé
8. C. Steidel

In Instrumentation

1. P. V. van Dokkum
2. Naveen A. Reddy
3. C. Steidel
4. C. Conroy
5. A. Shapley
6. I. Labbé
7. M. Franx
8. Mark Dickinson

Citations in the corpus

• Gas-to-dust mass ratios in local galaxies over a 2 dex metallicity range (2013, methodology): “The model from Galliano et al. (2008), while it well reproduces the observations at higher metallicity, does not reproduce the observed trend at low metallicities because of too-simple assumptions in their model.”
• GOODS-HERSCHEL MEASUREMENTS OF THE DUST ATTENUATION OF TYPICAL STAR-FORMING GALAXIES AT HIGH REDSHIFT: OBSERVATIONS OF ULTRAVIOLET-SELECTED GALAXIES AT z ∼ 2 (2011, background): “The small carbonaceous dust grains giving rise to the mid-IR emission are believed to be produced in AGB stars over a longer timescale than the Type II SNe responsible for the large grains that emit thermally in the infrared (e.g., Galliano et al. 2008).”
• An Overview of the Dwarf Galaxy Survey (2013, background): “The large sample of DGS galaxies surveyed from MIR to the submm, having widely varying metallicities, allows us to rigorously test various chemical evolution models (e.g., Edmunds 2001; Dwek 1998; Galliano et al. 2008).”
• REGULARITY UNDERLYING COMPLEXITY: A REDSHIFT-INDEPENDENT DESCRIPTION OF THE CONTINUOUS VARIATION OF GALAXY-SCALE MOLECULAR GAS PROPERTIES IN THE MASS-STAR FORMATION RATE PLANE (2013, unknown): “However, the large scatter in measured gas-to-dust ratios in local, low-metallicity and low-mass galaxies (e.g., Draine & Li 2007, Galliano et al. 2008, Galametz et al. 2011, Rémy-Ruyer et al. 2014) indicates that this method becomes highly inaccurate for z > 3 galaxies and galaxies with stellar…”
• Probing the dust properties of galaxies up to submillimetre wavelengths. II. Dust-to-gas mass ratio trends with metallicity and the submm excess in dwarf galaxies (2011, methodology): “…knowledge of the dust properties of the ISM such as the distribution of the different dust components (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), silicate, graphite) and how they are affected by metallicity (Galliano et al. 2008; Engelbracht et al. 2008; Bendo et al. 2008; Muñoz-Mateos et al. 2009).”
• Non-standard grain properties, dark gas reservoir, and extended submillimeter excess, probed by Herschel in the Large Magellanic Cloud (2011, background): “…destruction close to the remnant (Reach et al., 2002); (v) the dust abundances and properties are thought to evolve with the metallicity of the ISM (Galliano et al., 2003, 2005, 2008a); (vi) a transition from amorphous to crystalline silicates is observed in protostellar objects (e.g. Hallenbeck…”
• Dust spectral energy distributions of nearby galaxies: an insight from the Herschel Reference Survey (2014, background): “However, Galliano et al. (2008) suggested that the absence of PAH could be due to a delayed injection of carbon dust by AGB stars, and Sandstrom et al. (2012) proposed that the PAH were formed in molecular clouds, which have a lower filling factors in low-metallicity environments.”
• The HDUV Survey: A Revised Assessment of the Relationship between UV Slope and Dust Attenuation for High-redshift Galaxies (2017, background): “…age (e.g., Normand et al. 1995; Helou et al. 2001; Alonso-Herrero et al. 2004; Engelbracht et al. 2005; Hogg et al. 2005; Madden et al. 2006; Draine et al. 2007; Smith et al. 2007; Galliano et al. 2008; Hunt et al. 2010; Sales et al. 2010; Elbaz et al. 2011; Magdis et al. 2013; Seok et al. 2014).”
• DUST OBSCURATION AND METALLICITY AT HIGH REDSHIFT: NEW INFERENCES FROM UV, Hα, AND 8 μm OBSERVATIONS OF z ∼ 2 STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2010, background): “…lower relative to the IR dust grain metallicity (Zdust) for metal poor galaxies, but that the ratio of the metallicities increases rapidly until an equilibrium is reached for gas phase metallicities (Zgas) in excess of ≈ 0.3 Z⊙, owing to increased carbon ejection by AGBs (Galliano et al. 2008).”
• The dust scaling relations of the Herschel Reference Survey (2012, methodology): “…regime using up-to-date dust models and energy balance/radiative transfer techniques (e.g., Zubko et al. 2004; Draine & Li 2007; Bianchi 2008; Galliano et al. 2008; da Cunha et al. 2008; Baes et al. 2010; Compiègne et al. 2011) or just assuming simple single/double modified black-body…”
• Variations of the Mid-IR Aromatic Features inside and among Galaxies (2008, background): “Indeed, PAHs are underabundant in low-metallicity galaxies (e.g., Galliano et al. 2003, 2005, 2008; Draine et al. 2007).”
• A TWO-PARAMETER MODEL FOR THE INFRARED/SUBMILLIMETER/RADIO SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS OF GALAXIES AND ACTIVE GALACTIC NUCLEI (2014, background): “…Science Center, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA 5School of Astronomy and Space Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, 210093, China 2 Siebenmorgen & Krügel 2007; Draine & Li 2007; da Cunha et al. 2008; Galliano et al. 2008; Groves et al. 2008; Hermelo et al. 2013).”
• The applicability of far-infrared fine-structure lines as star formation rate tracers over wide ranges of metallicities and galaxy types (2014, background): “2006; Madden et al. 2006; Draine et al. 2007; Engelbracht et al. 2008; Galliano et al. 2008), while the abundance of very small grains grows drastically relative to the large grain population due to the fragmentation of those large grains through shocks experienced in the turbulent ISM (Jones et…”