Pyroclastic Blowout: Dust Survival in Isolated versus Clustered Supernovae

TL;DR

This study uses 3D hydrodynamical simulations to investigate how dust grains survive and evolve in supernova remnants within stellar clusters versus the diffuse interstellar medium, revealing that clustered supernovae can increase surrounding dust.

Contribution

It provides new insights into dust processing in supernova remnants within stellar clusters, highlighting the impact of environmental factors and multiple shocks on dust survival.

Findings

Clustered supernovae can increase dust in stellar cluster environments.

SNRs in clusters experience blowout phases with shell fragmentation.

Dust survival is influenced by reverse shocks, secondary shocks, and environmental conditions.

Abstract

Following the current debate on the fate of SN-condensed dust grains, here we explore by means of three-dimensional hydrodynamical simulations the interaction of dusty supernova remnants (SNRs) with the shocked winds of neighboring massive stars within young massive stellar clusters (SSCs). As a comparison, we have also explored the evolution of supernova remnants in the diffuse ISM with constant density. Since the hydrodynamics of SNRs is intimately related to the properties of their immediate environment, the lifecycle of dust grains in SNRs within SSCs is radically different from that in the diffuse ISM. Moreover, off-centered SNRs evolving in the steep density gradient established due to a star cluster wind experience a blowout phase: shell fragmentation due to protruding Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities and the venting of SN ejecta. Our main finding is that clustered SN explosions will cause a net increase in the amount of dust in the surroundings of young massive stellar clusters. Our analysis considers the multiple dust processing resulting from the passage of the SN reverse shock, including its reflection at the SNR's center, the injection of shocked stellar winds within the respective remnant's volume and the effect of secondary forward shocks produced in sequential SN explosions. In the simulations, we have on-the-fly calculated the rates of thermal sputtering and dust-induced radiative cooling provided an initial distribution of grain sizes and dust content. Fast-moving elongated dusty SN ejecta resemble mushroom clouds violently ascending in a stratified atmosphere after volcanic super-eruptions, where the pyroclasts carried by the clouds are wind-driven and eventually accumulate into the vast surroundings.