Dust Destruction in the Interstellar Medium

Abstract

Grains are injected into the interstellar medium (ISM) from evolved stars and supernovae; in addition, supernova ejecta may condense onto pre-existing grains before becoming well-mixed with the interstellar gas. Once in the ISM, grains can grow by accretion, but are also subject to destruction by interstellar shocks, The current status of the theory of shock destruction of interstellar grains is reviewed briefly. Small grains are destroyed by thermal sputtering in fast, non-radiative shocks; large grains are destroyed by grain-grain collisions and eroded by nonthermal sputtering in radiative shocks. The dominant shocks in the ISM are from supernova remnants (SNRs), and the mass of grains destroyed is proportional to the energy of the SNR. In a multiphase ISM, these shocks destroy the grains at a rate proportional to the volume filling factor of the phase; since the density of the hot phase is too low for efficient grain destruction, most of the destruction occurs in the warm phase. Not all SNRs are effective at destroying grains, however: some are above the gas disk, and some —Type IPs in associations—are highly correlated in space and time. The galactic SN rate is observed to about 2.2 per century (van den Bergh, 1983), but the effective supernova rate for grain destruction is estimated to be only about 0.8 per century. As a result, the timescale for the destruction of a typical refractory grain in the ISM is inferred to be about 4 × 10⁸ yr for either a two-phase or a three-phase ISM. Most of the refractory material in the ISM (other than carbon) is injected by supernovae, not evolved stars; the net injection timescale is estimated as about 1.5 x 10⁹ yr. Comparison of the destruction and injection timescales indicates that the fraction of grains injected by stars which survive in the ISM is only about 20%. Most of the refractory material in interstellar grains must, therefore, have accreted onto the grains in the ISM. Nonetheless, a significant fraction of dust formed in stars survives in the ISM and may be detectable in meteorites and interplanetary dust particles.