Dust destruction by the reverse shock in the clumpy supernova remnant Cassiopeia A based on hydrodynamic simulations

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamic simulations to model dust destruction in the clumpy ejecta of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, providing insights into dust survival rates after reverse shock interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a new combined simulation and post-processing approach to quantify dust destruction in supernova remnants, considering various physical processes.

Findings

Dust survival depends on initial grain size and material.

Higher gas densities lead to increased dust destruction.

Results inform models of dust contribution to the interstellar medium.

Abstract

Observations of the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae have shown that dust grains form in over-dense gas clumps in the expanding ejecta. The clumps are later subject to the passage of the reverse shock and a significant amount of the newly formed dust material can be destroyed due to the high temperatures and high velocities in the post-shock gas. To determine dust survival rates, we have performed a set of hydrodynamic simulations using the grid-based code AstroBEAR in order to model a shock wave interacting with a clump of gas and dust. Afterwards, dust motions and dust destruction rates are computed using our newly developed external, post-processing code Paperboats, which includes gas and plasma drag, grain charging, kinematic and thermal sputtering as well as grain-grain collisions. We have determined dust survival rates for the oxygen-rich supernova remnant Cassiopeia A as a function of initial grain sizes, dust materials and clump gas densities.