The evolution of amorphous hydrocarbons in the ISM: dust modelling from a new vantage point

By A. Jones, L. Fanciullo, M. Koehler, L. Verstraete, V. Guillet, N. Ysard. 2013

305 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Context. The evolution of amorphous hydrocarbon materials, a-C(:H), principally resulting from ultraviolet (UV) photon absorptioninduced processing, are likely at the heart of the variations in the observed properties of dust in the interstellar medium. Aims. The consequences of the size-dependent and compositional variations in a-C(:H), from aliphatic-rich a-C:H to aromatic-rich a-C, are studied within the context of the interstellar dust extinction and emission. Methods. Newly-derived optical property data for a-C(:H) materials, combined with that for an amorphous forsterite-type silicate with iron nano-particle inclusions, a-SilFe, are used to explore dust evolution in the interstellar medium. Results. We present a new dust model that consists of a power-law distribution of small a-C grains and log-normal distributions of large a-SilFe and a-C(:H) grains. The model, which is firmly anchored by laboratory-data, is shown to quite naturally explain the variations in the infrared (IR) to far-ultraviolet (FUV) extinction, the 217 nm UV bump, the IR absorption and emission bands and the IR-mm dust emission. Conclusions. The major strengths of the new model are its inherent simplicity and built-in capacity to follow dust evolution in interstellar media. We show that mantle accretion in molecular clouds and UV photo-processing in photo-dominated regions are likely the major drivers of dust evolution.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Geophysics, Materials Chemistry

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b417397e327acf6a8aad77f5ad60977eed04f1e4

How researchers see this paper

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. A. Banday
2. K. G'orski
3. H. Eriksen
4. F. Hansen
5. P. Lilje
6. Jacques Delabrouille
7. Benjamin Dan Wandelt
8. M. Arnaud

In Geophysics

1. M. Hobson

In Materials Chemistry

1. N. Ysard
2. A. Jones
3. L. Verstraete
4. K. Oberg
5. M. Koehler

Citations in the corpus

• The global dust modelling framework THEMIS (The Heterogeneous dust Evolution Model for Interstellar Solids) (2017, methodology): “The THEMIS dust model includes the effects of dust evolution in the denser regions of the ISM (Jones et al. 2014; Köhler et al. 2015).”
• Planck intermediate results. XXII. Frequency dependence of thermal emission from Galactic dust in intensity and polarization (2014, methodology): “…dust emission components include the long-wavelength tail of thermal dust emission (Draine & Li 2007; Meny et al. 2007; Compiègne et al. 2011; Jones et al. 2013), the anomalous microwave emission (AME, Kogut et al. 1996; Leitch et al. 1997; de Oliveira-Costa et al. 1999; Banday et al. 2003;…”
• Astrochemistry and compositions of planetary systems (2020, background): “Clouds mostly consist of gas, but approximately one percent of the mass of the cloud is in the form of sub-micron dust particles, initially composed of silicates and carbonaceous material (Draine 2003; Henning et al. 2010; Chiar et al. 2013; Jones et al. 2013).”
• Planckintermediate results (2016, background): “This reflects variations in the composition and structure of dust, something which is clearly seen in laboratory measurements (e.g. Jones et al. 2013).”