The infrared spectrum of Eta Carinae: Cosmic ray heating of circumstellar dust

Details The infrared spectrum of Eta Carinae: Cosmic ray heating of circumstellar dust The infrared spectrum of Eta Carinae: Cosmic ray heating of circumstellar dust

Mar 1982

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1982phdt.........3b&link_type=abstract

Ph.D. Thesis Washington Univ., Saint Louis, MO.

Computer Science

Cosmic Dust, Cosmic Rays, Heating, Infrared Spectra, Luminosity, Nebulae, Compton Effect, Density Distribution, Electrons, Ultraviolet Radiation

Scientific paper

The history and current observations of the unusual southern sky nebula, Eta Carinae, are reviewed. The infrared luminosity arises from a thick dust shell surrounding an energetic central object. A critical analysis of the conventional model of a bright, massive, central star is presented. It is shown that the amount of dust required for the infrared luminosity provides too great an optical depth for the observed visible and ultraviolet luminosity to be understood as radiation emitted by the central star and penetrating the dust shell. A central source of cosmic ray protons is proposed to heat the dust grains via the excitation of lattice electrons during proton-dust grain collisions. The predicted infrared spectrum is compared with observations for a range of parameters for the proton energy; dust grain size and composition; and dust shell boundaries and temperature and density distributions. With the constraint of the total infrared luminosity, the central source energy in protons is estimated using the Bethe-Bloch formula for stopping power. Although the proton luminosity is large, cosmic ray heating is shown to be a plausible mechanism for producing the infrared radiation from Carinae. Secondary effects of the model are examined. The most important is visible synchrotron emission arising from high energy electrons.

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