Stellar sources of dust in the high-redshift Universe
By R. Valiante, R. Schneider, S. Bianchi, A. Andersen. 2009
187 citations recorded by the source corpus.
With the aim of investigating whether stellar sources can account for the ≥10 8 Mdust masses inferred from mm/sub-mm observations of samples of 5 <z< 6.4 quasars, we develop a chemical evolution model which follows the evolution of metals and dust on the stellar characteristic lifetimes, taking into account dust destruction mechanisms. Using a grid of stellar dust yields as a function of the initial mass and metallicity over the range 1-40 M � and 0-1 Z� , we show that the role of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in cosmic dust evolution at high redshift might have been overlooked. In particular, we find that (i) for a stellar population forming according to a present-day Larson initial mass function (IMF) with mch = 0.35 M� , the characteristic time-scale at which AGB stars dominate dust production ranges between 150 and 500 Myr, depending both on the assumed star formation history and on the initial stellar metallicity; (ii) this result is only moderately dependent on the adopted stellar lifetimes, but it is significantly affected by variations of the IMF: for a mch = 5M � , dust from AGB starts to dominate only on time-scales larger than 1 Gyr and SNe are found to dominate dust evolution when mch ≥10 M� . We apply the chemical evolution model with dust to the host galaxy of the most distant quasar at z = 6.4, SDSS J1148+5251. Given the current uncertainties on the star formation history of the host galaxy, we have considered two models: (i) the star formation history obtained in a numerical simulation by Li et al. which predicts that a large stellar bulge is already formed at z = 6.4, and (ii) a constant star formation rate of 1000 Myr −1 , as suggested by the observations if most of the far-infrared luminosity is due to young stars. The total mass of dust predicted at z = 6.4 by the first model is 2 × 10 8 M� , within the range of values inferred by observations, with a substantial contribution (∼80 per cent) of AGB dust. When a constant star formation rate is adopted, the contribution of AGB dust decreases to ∼50 per cent but the total mass of dust formed is a factor of 2 smaller. Both models predict a rapid enrichment of the interstellar medium with metals and a relatively mild evolution of the carbon abundance, in agreement with observational constraints. This supports the idea that stellar sources can account for the dust observed but show that the contribution of AGB stars to dust production cannot be neglected, even at the most extreme redshifts currently accessible to observations.
Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/f2b7ff930e7dbabd092a96fcaaa7d6dbf18d6b5b
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
Citations in the corpus
- The dust content of galaxies from z = 0 to z = 9 (2016, methodology): “Most advances in dust chemistry in galaxy formation were made using specialised models (e.g. Dwek 1998; Hirashita, Tajiri & Kamaya 2002; Inoue 2003; Morgan & Edmunds 2003; Zhukovska, Gail & Trieloff 2008; Valiante et al. 2009; Asano et al. 2013; Zhukovska 2014; Feldmann 2015).”
- The assembly of ‘normal’ galaxies at z ∼ 7 probed by ALMA (2015, background): “…systems are characterized by a small content of dust (which should reprocess UV light into IR thermal emission), both because of their low metallicity and because of shortage of time to produce dust (Valiante et al. 2009, 2011; Schneider et al. 2014; Hirashita et al. 2014; Nozawa et al. 2007).”
- Dust formation history of galaxies: A critical role of metallicity* for the dust mass growth by accreting materials in the interstellar medium (2012, methodology): “However, Valiante et al. (2009) showed that the AGB stars also contribute to the dust production in young galaxies and cannot be neglected even on a short timescale of∼ 500 Myr.”
- Herschel PEP/HerMES: the redshift evolution (0 ≤ z ≤ 4) of dust attenuation and of the total (UV+IR) star formation rate density (2013, background): “Type II supernovae start producing dust earlier than AGB stars (Valiante et al.(2009)) but the difference in timescales is too short and only on the order of a few 10 Myr for the onset of dust formation.”
- DUST AND THE TYPE II-PLATEAU SUPERNOVA 2004dj (2009, background): “However, Valiante et al. (2009) and Dwek & Cherchneff (2011) have argued that, under certain circumstances, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars may make some contribution to the dust budget at high redshifts.”
- Production of dust by massive stars at high redshift (2011, methodology): “For example, the prediction of a major AGB star contribution (Valiante et al,2009) can be reproduced by the 42 models of Dwek and Cherchneff (2011) and Gall et al (2011a,b)when similar galaxy mass, SFR, IMF and dust production of stellar sources are assumed.”