Production of dust by massive stars at high redshift

TL;DR

This paper reviews the main stellar sources of dust in the early universe, emphasizing supernovae and high-mass stars, and discusses their efficiencies and implications for observed dust in high-redshift galaxies.

Contribution

It quantifies dust production efficiencies of stars 3-40 Msun and analyzes their roles in early cosmic dust formation, including the impact of the initial mass function.

Findings

Supernovae likely dominate dust production at high redshift.

High-mass (> 3 Msun) AGB stars contribute significantly only if SNe produce very little dust.

Rapid dust grain growth in the interstellar medium may be necessary to explain observed dust masses.

Abstract

The large amounts of dust detected in sub-millimeter galaxies and quasars at high redshift pose a challenge to galaxy formation models and theories of cosmic dust formation. At z > 6 only stars of relatively high mass (> 3 Msun) are sufficiently short-lived to be potential stellar sources of dust. This review is devoted to identifying and quantifying the most important stellar channels of rapid dust formation. We ascertain the dust production efficiency of stars in the mass range 3-40 Msun using both observed and theoretical dust yields of evolved massive stars and supernovae (SNe) and provide analytical expressions for the dust production efficiencies in various scenarios. We also address the strong sensitivity of the total dust productivity to the initial mass function. From simple considerations, we find that, in the early Universe, high-mass (> 3 Msun) asymptotic giant branch stars can only be dominant dust producers if SNe generate <~ 3 x 10^-3 Msun of dust whereas SNe prevail if they are more efficient. We address the challenges in inferring dust masses and star-formation rates from observations of high-redshift galaxies. We conclude that significant SN dust production at high redshift is likely required to reproduce current dust mass estimates, possibly coupled with rapid dust grain growth in the interstellar medium.