A New Dust Budget In The Large Magellanic Cloud

TL;DR

This study models dust production in the Large Magellanic Cloud, highlighting the contributions of AGB stars, CE ejecta, and SNe II, and finds that known sources are insufficient to account for observed dust masses.

Contribution

It introduces a population synthesis approach to quantify dust contributions from various stellar sources in the LMC, revealing the need for additional dust sources.

Findings

AGB stars produce mainly carbon grains

CE ejecta contribute silicate and iron grains

SNe II contributions are highly uncertain

Abstract

The origin of dust in a galaxy is poorly understood. Recently, the surveys of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) provide astrophysical laboratories for the dust studies. By a method of population synthesis, we investigate the contributions of dust produced by asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars, common envelope (CE) ejecta and type II supernovae (SNe II) to the total dust budget in the LMC. Based on our models, the dust production rates (DPRs) of AGB stars in the LMC are between about $2.5\times10^{-5}$ and $4.0\times10^{-6}M_\odot{\rm yr^{-1}}$. The uncertainty mainly results from different models for the dust yields of AGB stars. The DPRs of CE ejecta are about $6.3\times10^{-6}$(The initial binary fraction is 50\%). These results are within the large scatter of several observational estimates. AGB stars mainly produce carbon grains, which is consistent with the observations. Most of dust grains manufactured by CE ejecta are silicate and iron grains. The contributions of SNe II are very uncertain. Compared with SNe II without reverse shock, the DPRs of AGB stars and CE ejecta are negligible. However, if only 2 \% of dust grains produced by SNe II can survive after reverse shock, the contributions of SNe II are very small. The total dust masses produced by AGB stars in the LMC are between $2.8\times10^4$ and $3.2\times10^5M_\odot$, and those produced by CE ejecta are about $6.3\times10^4$. They are much lower than the values estimated by observations. Therefore, there should be other dust sources in the LMC.