Molecular nucleation theory of dust formation in core-collapse supernovae applied to SN 1987A

TL;DR

This paper models dust formation in supernova SN 1987A by simulating chemical reactions and grain growth, revealing how radioactive elements influence dust mass and size distribution, with implications for understanding supernova ejecta.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed chemical network model for dust nucleation and growth in supernova ejecta, accounting for radioactive effects and anisotropic nickel dredge-up, to predict dust mass and grain sizes.

Findings

Total dust mass between 0.41 and 0.73 solar masses.

Grain size distribution follows a power law with index -4.39.

Radioactive nickel bubbles significantly enhance dust synthesis.

Abstract

We model dust formation in the core collapse supernova explosion SN 1987A by treating the gas-phase formation of dust grain nuclei as a chemical process. To compute the synthesis of fourteen species of grains we integrate a non-equilibrium network of nucleating and related chemical reactions and follow the growth of the nuclei into grains via accretion and coagulation. The effects of the radioactive cobalt, titanium, and sodium on the thermodynamics and chemistry of the ejecta are taken into account. The grain temperature, which we allow to differ from the gas temperature, affects the surface-tension-corrected evaporation rate. We also account for He$^+$, Ne$^+$, Ar$^+$, and O weathering. We combine our dust synthesis model with a crude prescription for anisotropic radioactive nickel dredge-up into the core ejecta, the so-called `nickel bubbles', to compute the total dust mass and molecular-species-specific grain size distribution. The total mass varies between $0.41\,M_\odot$ and $0.73\,M_\odot$, depending on the bubble shell density contrast. In the decreasing order of abundance, the grain species produced are: magnesia, silicon, forsterite, iron sulfide, carbon, silicon dioxide, alumina, and iron. The combined grain size distribution is a power law $dN/da\propto a^{-4.39}$. Early ejecta compaction by expanding radioactive nickel bubbles strongly enhances dust synthesis. This underscores the need for improved understanding of hydrodynamic transport and mixing over the entire pre-homologous expansion.