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Title:
Stellar sources of dust in the high-redshift Universe
Authors:
Valiante, Rosa; Schneider, Raffaella; Bianchi, Simone; Andersen, Anja C.
Affiliation:
AA(Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università di Firenze, Largo Enrico Fermi 2, 50125 Firenze, Italy), AB(INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, 50125, Firenze, Italy), AC(INAF - Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Largo Enrico Fermi 5, 50125, Firenze, Italy), AD(Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Juliane Maries Vej 30, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark)
Publication:
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 397, Issue 3, pp. 1661-1671. (MNRAS Homepage)
Publication Date:
08/2009
Origin:
MNRAS
Astronomy Keywords:
stars: AGB and post-AGB , supernovae: general , dust, extinction , galaxies: evolution , galaxies: high-redshift , galaxies: ISM , quasars: general
DOI:
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.15076.x
Bibliographic Code:
2009MNRAS.397.1661V

Abstract

With the aim of investigating whether stellar sources can account for the >=108Msolar dust masses inferred from mm/sub-mm observations of samples of 5 < z < 6.4 quasars, we develop a chemical evolution model which follows the evolution of metals and dust on the stellar characteristic lifetimes, taking into account dust destruction mechanisms. Using a grid of stellar dust yields as a function of the initial mass and metallicity over the range 1-40Msolar and 0-1Zsolar, we show that the role of asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars in cosmic dust evolution at high redshift might have been overlooked. In particular, we find that (i) for a stellar population forming according to a present-day Larson initial mass function (IMF) with mch = 0.35Msolar, the characteristic time-scale at which AGB stars dominate dust production ranges between 150 and 500 Myr, depending both on the assumed star formation history and on the initial stellar metallicity; (ii) this result is only moderately dependent on the adopted stellar lifetimes, but it is significantly affected by variations of the IMF: for a mch = 5Msolar, dust from AGB starts to dominate only on time-scales larger than 1 Gyr and SNe are found to dominate dust evolution when mch >=10Msolar. We apply the chemical evolution model with dust to the host galaxy of the most distant quasar at z = 6.4, SDSS J1148+5251. Given the current uncertainties on the star formation history of the host galaxy, we have considered two models: (i) the star formation history obtained in a numerical simulation by Li et al. which predicts that a large stellar bulge is already formed at z = 6.4, and (ii) a constant star formation rate of 1000Msolaryr-1, as suggested by the observations if most of the far-infrared luminosity is due to young stars. The total mass of dust predicted at z = 6.4 by the first model is 2 × 108Msolar, within the range of values inferred by observations, with a substantial contribution (~80 per cent) of AGB dust. When a constant star formation rate is adopted, the contribution of AGB dust decreases to ~50 per cent but the total mass of dust formed is a factor of 2 smaller. Both models predict a rapid enrichment of the interstellar medium with metals and a relatively mild evolution of the carbon abundance, in agreement with observational constraints. This supports the idea that stellar sources can account for the dust observed but show that the contribution of AGB stars to dust production cannot be neglected, even at the most extreme redshifts currently accessible to observations.
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