Intergalactic dust and its photoelectric heating

TL;DR

This paper investigates the role of dust photoelectric heating in the intergalactic medium, quantifying its rate under various conditions and comparing it to other heating mechanisms, with implications for IGM temperature structures.

Contribution

It provides a new calculation of dust photoelectric heating rates in the IGM using updated models for dust yield and size distribution, highlighting the importance of grain size.

Findings

Dust heating dominates at low densities (<10^{-6} cm^{-3}) with dust-to-gas ratio of 10^{-4}.

Large grains reduce heating efficiency by a factor of 5.

Dust heating may cause inverted temperature-density relations in the low-density IGM.

Abstract

We have examined the dust photoelectric heating in the intergalactic medium (IGM). The heating rate in a typical radiation field of the IGM is represented by $\Gamma_{\rm pe} = 1.2\times10^{-34}$ erg s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-3}$ $({\cal D}/10^{-4})(n_{\rm H}/10^{-5} {\rm cm^{-3}})^{4/3} (J_{\rm L}/10^{-21} {\rm erg s^{-1} cm^{-2} Hz^{-1} sr^{-1}})^{2/3} (T/10^4 {\rm K})^{-1/6}$, where ${\cal D}$ is the dust-to-gas mass ratio, $n_{\rm H}$ is the hydrogen number density, $J_{\rm L}$ is the mean intensity at the hydrogen Lyman limit of the background radiation, and $T$ is the gas temperature, if we assume the new X-ray photoelectric yield model by Weingartner et al. (2006) and the dust size distribution in the Milky Way by Mathis, Rumpl, & Nordsieck (1977). This heating rate dominates the HI and HeII photoionization heating rates when the hydrogen number density is less than $\sim10^{-6}$ cm$^{-3}$ if ${\cal D}=10^{-4}$ which is 1% of that in the Milky Way, although the heating rate is a factor of 2--4 smaller than that with the old yield model by Weingartner & Draine (2001). The grain size distribution is very important. If only large ($\ge0.1$ $\mu$m) grains exist in the IGM, the heating rate is reduced by a factor of $\simeq5$. Since the dust heating is more efficient in a lower density medium relative to the photoionization heating, it may cause an inverted temperature--density relation in the low density IGM suggested by Bolton et al. (2008). Finally, we have found that the dust heating is not very important in the mean IGM before the cosmic reionization.