Constraint on intergalactic dust from thermal history of intergalactic medium

Details Constraint on intergalactic dust from thermal history of intergalactic medium Constraint on intergalactic dust from thermal history of intergalactic medium

2002-12-06

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0212158v2

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.341:L7,2003

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

5 pages, 2 figures; accepted for publication in MNRAS pink pages

Scientific paper

10.1046/j.1365-8711.2003.06619.x

This Letter investigates the amount of dust in the intergalactic medium (IGM). The dust photoelectric heating can be the most efficient heating mechanism in the IGM where the density is very small and there are a lot of hard ultraviolet photons. Comparing the observational thermal history of IGM with a theoretical one taking into account the dust photoelectric heating, we can put an upper limit on the dust-to-gas ratio, ${\cal D}$, in the IGM. Since the rate of the dust photoelectric heating depends on the size of dust, we find the following results: If the grain size is $\ga 100$ \AA, ${\cal D}$ at $z \sim 3$ is $\la 1/100$ Galactic value corresponding to $\Omega_{\rm dust}^{\rm IGM}\la 10^{-5}$. On the other hand, if the grain size is as small as $\sim 10$ \AA, ${\cal D}$ is $\la 1/1000$ Galactic value corresponding to $\Omega_{\rm dust}^{\rm IGM}\la 10^{-6}$.

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