Radial variation of the silicate-to-carbon ratio in M31 probed by PRIMA

Chastenet, Jérémy, De Looze, Ilse, Baes, Maarten, Bianchi, Simone, Casasola, Viviana, Ciesla, Laure, Eales, Stephen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7394-426X, Fritz, Jacopo, Galliano, Frédéric, Madden, Suzanne C., Nersesian, Angelos, Relaño, Monica, Smith, Matthew W. L. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3532-6970, van der Giessen, Stefan and Xilouris, Emmanuel 2025. Radial variation of the silicate-to-carbon ratio in M31 probed by PRIMA. Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments, and Systems 11 (3) , 031623. 10.1117/1.jatis.11.3.031623

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Abstract

The properties of interstellar dust grains are being scrutinized more than ever before, with the advent of large facilities. Infrared emission from dust grains is a powerful asset that can help constrain their physical and chemical properties. Among these, the relative ratio of carbon-rich to silicate-rich grains remains one that has not yet been investigated thoroughly due to the lack of dedicated instruments and modeling limitations. We quantify the modeling degeneracies inherent to constraining the far-infrared (far-IR) slope of the dust emission spectral energy distribution. Used as a proxy for the silicate-to-carbon ratio, we find that recovering the far-IR slope is affected by the estimate of the local radiation field and the input abundances of different grain species. We show that PRIMA’s hyperspectral imaging will lead to better constrained local radiation fields, which will aid—together with PRIMA’s polarization capabilities—to better constrain the silicate-to-carbon ratio in M31, and how it spatially varies within the galaxy.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Publisher:	Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers
ISSN:	2329-4124
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	18 August 2025
Date of Acceptance:	23 July 2025
Last Modified:	18 Aug 2025 15:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/180522

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