Dust in Supernovae and Supernova Remnants I: Formation Scenarios

Abstract

Supernovae are considered as prime sources of dust in space. Observations of local supernovae over the past couple of decades have detected the presence of dust in supernova ejecta. The reddening of the high redshift quasars also indicate the presence of large masses of dust in early galaxies. Considering the top heavy IMF in the early galaxies, supernovae are assumed to be the major contributor to these large amounts of dust. However, the composition and morphology of dust grains formed in a supernova ejecta is yet to be understood with clarity. Moreover, the dust masses inferred from observations in mid-infrared and submillimeter wavelength regimes differ by two orders of magnitude or more. Therefore, the mechanism responsible for the synthesis of molecules and dust in such environments plays a crucial role in studying the evolution of cosmic dust in galaxies. This review summarises our current knowledge of dust formation in supernova ejecta and tries to quantify the role of supernovae as dust producers in a galaxy.

The dust content of the Crab Nebula

“…In line with recent studies of other SNRs, we conclude that the Crab's efficient dust condensation (8-12%) provides further evidence for a scenario whereby supernovae could provide considerable contributions to the interstellar dust budgets in galaxies. In the future, with upcoming facilities such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST, Gardner et al 2006), SPICA (Roelfsema et al 2018) and the Origins Space Telescope, we will be able to expand on the current sample of PWNe with dust mass detections and, at the same time, look for dust features characteristic of the type of grain species formed in PWNe, which will help to further bring down uncertainties on current supernova dust masses and to provide observational input to test the nucleation of various grain species during the first couple of hundred days post-explosion in the current generation of core-collapse supernova dust models (see Sarangi et al 2018 for a recent review).…”

Dicarbon Formation in Collisions of Two Carbon Atoms

“…1 illustrates a sample of the experimentally observed bands (Tanabashi et al 2007;Bornhauser et al 2015;Macrae 2016;Furtenbacher et al 2016) connecting eleven singlet, triplet, and quintet states of the C 2 molecule that contribute to the overall radiative association rate coefficient for this molecule. In the ejecta of SN1987A and other core-collapse supernovae, CO and SiO were detected, see (Cherchneff & Sarangi 2011;Sarangi et al 2018), through fundamental (∆ν = 1) bands 1 of ground molecular electronic states allowing observational tests of molecular formation models (Liu et al 1992;Liu & Dalgarno 1995;Cherchneff & Sarangi 2011;Sarangi & Cherchneff 2013;Rho et al 2018)-dicarbon, however, lacks a permanent electric dipole moment and analogous vibrational transitions (fundamental bands) do not exist, making reliable theoretical predictions of rate coefficients imperative. Moreover, recent three-dimensional mapping of CO and SiO in the SN 1987A core ejecta with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows a clumpy mixed structure calling for improvements beyond one-dimension in hydrodynamical and chemical modeling of molecular formation (Abellán et al 2017); a reliable description of dicarbide formation might improve such future calculations.…”

“…Moreover, recent three-dimensional mapping of CO and SiO in the SN 1987A core ejecta with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) shows a clumpy mixed structure calling for improvements beyond one-dimension in hydrodynamical and chemical modeling of molecular formation (Abellán et al 2017); a reliable description of dicarbide formation might improve such future calculations. Finally, understanding the origins of cosmic dust and the roles played by supernovae in contributing to extragalactic dust depends on progress in modeling dust formation (Sarangi et al 2018;Sluder et al 2018).…”

“…Applications of the current computations to various astrophysical environments and laboratory studies are briefly discussed focusing on these rates.1 CO was also detected in the first overtone band (∆ν = 2). In SN 1987A individual rotational lines of CO and of SiO were detected at late epoch, see Abellán et al (2017);Sarangi et al (2018).…”

Dust in Supernovae and Supernova Remnants II: Processing and Survival

“…The goal of this review, which is the second paper of a series of two, is to provide the state of the art about the processing and survival of dust inside supernova remnants, in terms of theoretical modelling and comparison with observations. The theoretical and observational aspects related to the formation and detection of dust in supernovae are discussed in our companion Paper I (Sarangi et al 2018).…”