Gas and dust temperature in pre-stellar cores revisited: New limits on cosmic-ray ionization rate

TL;DR

This paper presents a self-consistent model for gas and dust temperatures in pre-stellar cores, enabling better constraints on cosmic-ray ionization rates and dust evolution through combined theoretical and observational analysis.

Contribution

It introduces analytical expressions for temperature in dense cores considering dust size distribution, improving upon standard models and aiding in cosmic-ray ionization rate estimation.

Findings

Gas temperature measurements in L1544 suggest a higher cosmic-ray ionization rate (~10^{-16} s^{-1}) than previously estimated.

The model links dust evolution with cosmic-ray transport regimes in molecular clouds.

Combining theory and observations can constrain dust properties and ionization rates in pre-stellar cores.

Abstract

We develop a self-consistent model for the equilibrium gas temperature and size-dependent dust temperature in cold, dense pre-stellar cores, assuming an arbitrary power-law size distribution of dust grains. Compact analytical expressions applicable to a broad range of physical parameters are derived and compared with predictions of the commonly used standard model. It is suggested that combining the theoretical results with observations should allow us to constrain the degree of dust evolution and the cosmic-ray ionization rate in dense cores, and to help in discriminating between different regimes of cosmic-ray transport in molecular clouds. In particular, assuming a canonical MRN distribution of grain sizes, our theory demonstrates that the gas temperature measurements in the pre-stellar core L1544 are consistent with an ionization rate as high as $\sim 10^{-16}$ s$^{-1}$, an order of magnitude higher than previously thought.