Genesis and evolution of dust in galaxies in the early Universe I. Modeling dust evolution in starburst galaxies

TL;DR

This study models dust evolution in early starburst galaxies, highlighting how galaxy mass, stellar initial mass function, and dust destruction influence dust accumulation, with supernovae playing a key role in early dust enrichment.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive numerical galactic chemical evolution model that incorporates various stellar sources and parameters to study dust evolution in early galaxies.

Findings

Dust mass increases with galaxy mass.

Supernovae dominate early dust enrichment (<200 Myr).

High initial gas mass enables >10^8 Msun dust production.

Abstract

We have developed a numerical galactic chemical evolution model. The model is constructed such that the effect of a wide range of parameters can be investigated. It takes into account results from stellar evolution models, a differentiation between diverse types of core collapse SNe and the contribution of AGB stars in the mass range 3-8 Msun. We consider the lifetime-dependent yield injection into the ISM by all sources as well as dust destruction due to SN shocks in the ISM. We ascertain the temporal progression of the dust mass, the dust-to-gas and dust-to-metal mass ratios as well as other physical properties of a galaxy and study their dependence on the mass of the galaxy, the IMF, dust production efficiencies and dust destruction in the ISM. The amount of dust and the physical properties of a galaxy strongly depend on the initial gas mass available. Overall, while the total amount of dust produced increases with galaxy mass, the detailed outcome depends on the SN dust production efficiency, the IMF and the strength of dust destruction in the ISM. Dust masses are higher for IMFs biased towards higher stellar masses, despite the fact that these IMFs are more strongly affected by dust destruction in the ISM. The sensitivity to the IMF increases as the mass of the galaxy decreases. SNe are primarily responsible for a significant enrichment with dust at early epochs (< 200 Myr). Dust production with a dominant contribution by AGB stars is found to be insufficient to account for dust masses in excess of 10^8 Msun within 400 Myr after starburst. We find that galaxies with initial gas masses between 1-5 x 10^11 Msun are sufficiently massive to enable production of dust masses >10^8 Msun. Our preferred scenario is dominated by SN dust production in combination with top-heavy IMFs and moderate dust destruction in the ISM.