Old supernova dust factory revealed at the Galactic center

Abstract

Dust formation in supernova ejecta is currently the leading candidate to explain the large quantities of dust observed in the distant, early Universe. However, it is unclear whether the ejecta-formed dust can survive the hot interior of the supernova remnant (SNR). We present infrared observations of ~0.02 $M_{\odot }$ of warm (~100 K) dust seen near the center of the ~10,000 yr-old Sgr A East SNR at the Galactic center. Our findings signify the detection of dust within an older SNR that is expanding into a relatively dense surrounding medium ($n_e$ ~ 100 ${\mathrm{cm}}^{-3}$) and has survived the passage of the reverse shock. The results suggest that supernovae may indeed be the dominant dust production mechanism in the dense environment of early Universe galaxies.

25 pages, 5 figures. Includes supplementary materials. Published Online March 19 2015 on Science Express

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• Supernova 2017eaw: molecule and dust formation from infrared observations
• The X-ray footprint of the CircumNuclear Disk
• Infrared Emission from Supernova Remnants: Formation and Destruction of Dust
• Can Dust Injected by SNe Explain the NIR-MIR Excess in Young Massive Stellar Clusters?
• Disc-halo gas outflows driven by stellar clusters as seen in multiwavelength tracers
• Hydrodynamic Evolution of Sgr A East: The Imprint of A Supernova Remnant in the Galactic Center
• AKARI near-infrared spectroscopy of the extended green object G318.05+0.09: Detection of CO fundamental ro-vibrational emission
• Inferring properties of dust in supernovae with neural networks