Abstract

Contributed Talk - Splinter SNR

Tuesday, 10 September 2024, 15:30   (S14)

Dust destruction by the reverse shock in clumpy supernova remnants

Florian Kirchschlager, Ilse De Looze, Nina Sartorio, Tassilo Scheffler
Ghent University

Observations have proven that the expanding ejecta of supernova remnants (SNR) form up to 1 solar mass of dust in dense clumps of gas. Before the dust can be expelled into the interstellar medium and contribute to the interstellar dust budget, it has to survive the reverse shock that is generated through the interaction of the preceding supernova blast wave with the surrounding medium. However, both simulations and observations indicate that a significant amount of the newly formed dust can be destroyed by the reverse shock. Impinging gas particles evoke thermal and non-thermal sputtering of the dust grains but can also lead to grain growth by gas accretion. In addition, grain-grain collisions can result in shattering or vaporisation of one or both colliding grains and to a redistribution of the initial grain sizes. A number of previous studies have examined dust destruction rates caused by the passage of the reverse shock in SNRs. Their formalisms, approaches, and models vary widely, as do the resulting dust survival rates which span a range from 0 to 100 %. The different studies emphasize the strong dependence of the survival rate on dust and ejecta properties, but also on dust processes considered in the models. In order to draw more precise conclusions about the fate of dust in the ejecta, it is necessary to consider all relevant physical dust processes, to use a sophisticated model, and to know the dust and ejecta properties as well as possible. In this talk I will focus on simulations of dust destruction in the ejecta of SNRs. In particular, I will present results derived with our dust post-processing code Paperboats. Based on the output of highly resolved MHD simulations, we are able to calculate the dust dynamics, dust destruction and possible grain growth for dust material in a SNR clump disrupted by the reverse shock. The modelling includes a multitude of dust processes which is unique in its number. Taking this into account, it was possible to improve the dust destruction determination in clumpy SNR ejecta and to calculate more accurate survival rates. Moreover, we are able to simulate dust density maps of the clump-shock interaction which allows the comparison with observations. I will outline the strong dependence of dust survival in SNRs on the dust grain sizes, clump density, magnetic field strength and orientation, as well as on the temporal evolution of the ejecta, in particular for the well-studied SNR Cassiopeia A.