Rapid Cooling of Dusty Gas in Elliptical Galaxies

Abstract

We propose a stellar origin for the central dust clouds observed in most giant elliptical galaxies. Dusty gas ejected from evolving red giant stars in E or cD galaxies can cool rapidly even after entering the hot, X-ray emitting gas. Cooling by thermal collisions with dust grains can be faster than either the dynamical time in the galactic potential or the grain sputtering time. Some grains survive in the cooled gas. Dusty stellar outflows cool more efficiently in the central regions where the stellar metallicity is higher. Mergers with gas and dust-rich dwarf galaxies may occasionally occur but are not required to explain the observed dust clouds.

4 pages (emulateapj5) with 1 figure; accepted by The Astrophysical Journal Letters

References in corpus (6)

• Mid-IR Observations of Mass Loss in Elliptical Galaxies
• Heated Cooling Flows
• Abundance gradients and the role of SNe in M87
• On the Temperature Structure of M87
• The peculiar small-scale X-ray morphology of NGC 5846 observed with Chandra
• Dust in Hot Gas: Far Infrared Emission from Three Local Elliptical Galaxies

Cited by in corpus (33)

• The Centers of Early-Type Galaxies with HST. V. New WFPC2 Photometry
• Every BCG with a strong radio AGN has an X-ray cool core: is the cool core - noncool core dichotomy too simple?
• Evidence for AGN Feedback in Galaxy Clusters and Groups
• Revisiting the Cooling Flow Problem in Galaxies, Groups, and Clusters of Galaxies
• A Strong Correlation between Circumnuclear Dust and Black Hole Accretion in Early-Type Galaxies
• Cold Dust in Early-Type Galaxies. I. Observations
• ALMA observations of molecular clouds in three group centered elliptical galaxies: NGC 5846, NGC 4636, and NGC 5044
• The X-ray cavities, filaments and cold fronts in the core of the galaxy group NGC 5044
• The Origin of Dust in Early-Type Galaxies and Implications for Accretion onto Supermassive Black Holes
• The escape of ionizing photons from supernova-dominated primordial galaxies
• Feedback from Intra-Cluster Supernovae on the ICM in Cooling Flow Galaxy Clusters
• Multifrequency VLA radio observations of the X-ray cavity cluster of galaxies RBS797: evidence of differently oriented jets
• HST/ACS observations of shell galaxies: inner shells, shell colours and dust
• AGN-stimulated Cooling of Hot Gas in Elliptical Galaxies
• The Na D profiles of nearby low-power radio sources: Jets powering outflows
• Spitzer Observations of Transient, Extended Dust in Two Elliptical Galaxies: New Evidence of Recent Feedback Energy Release in Galactic Cores
• Dust processing in elliptical galaxies
• Observations of Cold Dust in Nearby Elliptical Galaxies
• A small X-ray corona of the narrow-angle tail radio galaxy NGC 1265 soaring through the Perseus cluster
• Star Formation in Nearby Early-Type Galaxies: The Radio Continuum Perspective
• Time-dependent Circulation Flows: Iron Enrichment in Cooling Flows with Heated Return Flows
• Probing multiphase gas in local massive elliptical galaxies via multiwavelength observations
• Recent galaxy mergers and residual star formation of red sequence galaxies in galaxy clusters
• X-ray Isophotes in a Rapidly Rotating Elliptical Galaxy: Evidence of Inflowing Gas
• Dust evolution with active galactic nucleus feedback in elliptical galaxies
• Spatially Resolved Imaging at 350um of Cold Dust in Nearby Elliptical Galaxies
• The SAMI Galaxy Survey: Kinematics of Dusty Early-Type Galaxies
• Merging cold front and AGN feedback in the peculiar galaxy cluster Abell 2626
• A Comparison of Stellar and Gas-Phase Chemical Abundances in Dusty Early-Type Galaxies
• Modelling the evolution and influence of dust in cosmological simulations that include the cold phase of the interstellar medium
• Variation of Mid and Far-IR Luminosities among Early-Type Galaxies: Relation to Stellar Metallicity and Cold Dust
• The Dirt on Dry Mergers
• Investigating AGN feedback in H$\alpha$-luminous galaxy clusters: first Chandra X-ray analysis of Abell 2009