Dust survival rates in clumps passing through the Cas A reverse shock – I. Results for a range of clump densities

Journal Article · 30 August 2019 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz2399 · OSTI ID:1563015

Kirchschlager, Florian  ^[1]; Schmidt, Franziska D. ^[1]; Barlow, M. J.  ^[1]; Fogerty, Erica L.  ^[2]; Bevan, Antonia  ^[1]; Priestley, Felix D. ^[3]

---

1. Univ. College London (United Kingdom)
2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
3. Univ. College London (United Kingdom); Cardiff Univ., Wales (United Kingdom)

The reverse shock in the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae is potentially able to destroy newly formed dust material. In order to determine dust survival rates, we have performed a set of hydrodynamic simulations using the grid-based code astrobear in order to model a shock wave interacting with clumpy supernova ejecta. Dust motions and destruction rates were computed using our newly developed external, post-processing code paperboats, which includes gas drag, grain charging, sputtering, and grain–grain collisions. We have determined dust destruction rates for the oxygen-rich supernova remnant Cassiopeia A as a function of initial grain sizes and clump gas density. We found that up to $$30\,\mathrm{{{\ \rm per\ cent}}}$$ of the carbon dust mass is able to survive the passage of the reverse shock if the initial grain size distribution is narrow with radii around ~10–50 nm for high gas densities, or with radii around $$\sim 0.5\!-\!1.5\,\mathrm{\mu m}$$ for low and medium gas densities. Silicate grains with initial radii around 10–30 nm show survival rates of up to $$40\,\mathrm{{{\ \rm per\ cent}}}$$ for medium- and high-density contrasts, while silicate material with micron-sized distributions is mostly destroyed. For both materials, the surviving dust mass is rearranged into a new size distribution that can be approximated by two components: a power-law distribution of small grains and a lognormal distribution of grains having the same size range as the initial distribution. Our results show that grain–grain collisions and sputtering are synergistic and that grain–grain collisions can play a crucial role in determining the surviving dust budget in supernova remnants.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); European Research Council (ERC); Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) (United Kingdom)
• Grant/Contract Number: 89233218CNA000001; ERC-2015-AdG-694520; ST/P002307/1; ST/R002452/1; ST/R00689X/1
• OSTI ID: 1563015
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1669087
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-19-27511; TRN: US2203805
• Journal Information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 489, Issue 4; ISSN 0035-8711
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English