A Model Connecting Galaxy Masses, Star Formation Rates, and Dust Temperatures Across Cosmic Time

TL;DR

This paper presents an analytic model linking galaxy properties to dust content and temperature evolution across cosmic time, successfully reproducing observed trends up to redshift 6 and predicting hot dust in early low-mass galaxies.

Contribution

The study introduces a simple, empirically motivated model connecting galaxy evolution with dust properties, extending predictions to high redshifts and informing future observations.

Findings

Galaxies in the early Universe had more dust than low-redshift counterparts.

Dust temperature increases with redshift for fixed stellar mass.

Predicted hot dust in low-mass, high-redshift galaxies needs observational confirmation.

Abstract

We investigate the evolution of dust content in galaxies from redshifts z=0 to z=9.5. Using empirically motivated prescriptions, we model galactic-scale properties -- including halo mass, stellar mass, star formation rate, gas mass, and metallicity -- to make predictions for the galactic evolution of dust mass and dust temperature in main sequence galaxies. Our simple analytic model, which predicts that galaxies in the early Universe had greater quantities of dust than their low-redshift counterparts, does a good job at reproducing observed trends between galaxy dust and stellar mass out to z~6. We find that for fixed galaxy stellar mass, the dust temperature increases from z=0 to z=6. Our model forecasts a population of low-mass, high-redshift galaxies with interstellar dust as hot as, or hotter than, their more massive counterparts; but this prediction needs to be constrained by observations. Finally, we make predictions for observing 1.1-mm flux density arising from interstellar dust emission with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.