Mattsson, L., Gomez, Haley Louise  ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3398-0052, Andersen, A. C. and Matsuura, Mikako ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5529-5593
2015.
From flux to dust mass: Does the grain-temperature distribution matter for estimates of cold dust masses in supernova remnants?
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
449
(4)
, pp. 4079-4090.
10.1093/mnras/stv487
|
Preview |
PDF
- Accepted Post-Print Version
Download (605kB) | Preview |
Abstract
The amount of dust estimated from infrared to sub-millimetre (submm) observations strongly depends on assumptions of different grain sizes, compositions and optical properties. Here we use a simple model of thermal emission from cold silicate/carbon dust at a range of dust grain temperatures and fit the spectral energy distribution (SED) of the Crab nebula as a test. This can lower the derived dust mass for the Crab by ∼50 per cent and 30–40 per cent for astronomical silicates and amorphous carbon grains compared to recently published values (0.25 M⊙ → 0.12 M⊙ and 0.12 M⊙ → 0.072 M⊙, respectively), but the implied dust mass can also increase by as much as almost a factor of 6 (0.25 M⊙ → 1.14 M⊙ and 0.12 M⊙ → 0.71 M⊙) depending on assumptions regarding the sizes/temperatures of the coldest grains. The latter values are clearly unrealistic due to the expected metal budget, though. Furthermore, we show by a simple numerical experiment that if a cold-dust component does have a grain-temperature distribution, it is almost unavoidable that a two-temperature fit will yield an incorrect dust mass estimate. But we conclude that grain temperatures is not a greater uncertainty than the often poorly constrained emissivities (i.e. material properties) of cosmic dust, although there is clearly a need for improved dust emission models. The greatest complication associated with deriving dust masses still arises in the uncertainty in the dust composition.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Date Type: | Publication |
| Status: | Published |
| Schools: | Schools > Physics and Astronomy |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | Stars: AGB and post-AGB supernovae: general supernovae: individual: Crab nebula dust, extinction |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| ISSN: | 0035-8711 |
| Date of First Compliant Deposit: | 7 November 2016 |
| Date of Acceptance: | 4 March 2015 |
| Last Modified: | 19 Nov 2024 06:15 |
| URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/74323 |
Citation Data
Cited 19 times in Scopus. View in Scopus. Powered By Scopus® Data
Actions (repository staff only)
 |
Edit Item |
Altmetric
Altmetric