Variations in Silicate Stardust: The Perils of Averages

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

Dust plays in important role in many astrophysical environments. Here we present a study of dust emanating from Asymptotic Giant Branch (AGB) stars, which are important because they are the principle contributors of dust to interstellar space. Dust around oxygen-rich AGB stars exhibit various infrared spectral features which have been classified according to their shape and peak position and are designated as SE1 through SE8. Here we concentrate on the SE8 class which is expected to exhibit the strongest 10 micron spectral feature, attributed to silicate dust, in order to determine how much the feature varies from star to star.
For each individual spectrum the dust features were isolated by dividing by a blackbody continuum. The main characteristics of the 10 and 18 micron emission features were determined, including the peak height, peak wavelength, the full width half maximum, the baricenter, and the asymmetry of the feature. The peak position of the 10 micron feature varies enormously ( 9.4.-10.4 microns). We then sought any correlations between the spectral parameters in order to determine the causes of the variations. Very few correlations were found, indicating that the causes of variations of not simply explained.
Using a simple radiative transfer modeling program (DUSTY) we produced synthetic spectra in order to determine how the physical parameters of the circumstellar shell produced such varied spectra.

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