Chemical and physical properties of interstellar dust

The characteristics of interstellar dust reflect a complex interplay between stellar injection of stardust, destruction in the ISM, and regrowth in clouds. Astronomical observations and analysis of stardust isolated from meteorites have revealed a highly diverse interstellar and circumstellar grain inventory, including both amorphous materials and highly crystalline compounds (silicates and carbon). This review summarizes this dust budget and inventory. Interstellar dust is highly processed during its sojourn from its birthsite (stellar ejecta) to its incorporation into protoplanetary systems. Processing by strong shocks due to supernova explosions is particularly important. Sputtering by impacting gas ions in shocks in the intercloud medium of the ISM is counteracted by accretion in cloud phases and their balance sets the observed, interstellar, elemental depletion patterns. Astronomical and meteoritical-stardust evidence for these processes is reviewed and it is concluded that dust formation in the ISM is very rapid. Not surprisingly, the characteristics of interstellar dust are expected to vary widely reflecting local stellar sources, the effects of SNe processing, and the interstellar accretion process.

Colliding galaxies and the rapid assembly of clouds into proto-super star clusters

We present a short summary of several 2D hydrodynamic calculations that suggest that upon the collision of galaxies two physical mechanisms lead to the formation of proto-super star clusters. These are condensation, induced by radiative cooling, and implosion caused by the shocked intercloud medium. Even in the absence of gravity, these lead to storage and compression of the dense cloud component into massive and compact gravitationally unstable condensations. The resulting entities exhibit enhanced surface densities that are several hundred times higher than their initial values. These are here postulated as the cradles of very efficient and rapid star-formation episodes, able to withstand the negative feedback effects associated with star formation, while leading to the formation of massive and compact super star clusters.

Relations between interstellar density and magnetic field fluctuations I. Kinetic theory of fluctuations

Using linear kinetic plasma theory the relation between electron density and magnetic field fluctuations for low-frequency plasma waves for Maxwellian background distribution functions of arbitrary temperatures in a uniform magnetic field is derived. By taking the non-relativistic temperature limit this ratio is calculated for the diffuse intercloud medium in our Galaxy. The diffuse intercloud medium is the dominant phase of the interstellar medium with respect to radio wave propagation, dispersion and rotation measure studies. The differences between the relation of electron density and magnetic field fluctuations from the linear kinetic theory compared with the classical magnetohydrodynamics theory are established and discussed.

Starbursts Triggered by Cloud Compression in Interacting Galaxies

We propose a physical mechanism for the triggering of starbursts in interacting spiral galaxies by shock compression of the pre-existing disk giant molecular clouds (GMCs). We show that as a disk GMC tumbles into the central region of a galaxy following a galactic tidal encounter, it undergoes a radiative shock compression by the pre-existing high pressure of the central molecular intercloud medium. The shocked outer shell of a GMC becomes gravitationally unstable, which results in a burst of star formation in the initially stable GMC. In the case of colliding galaxies with physical overlap such as Arp 244, the cloud compression is shown to occur due to the hot, high-pressure remnant gas resulting from the collisions of atomic hydrogen gas clouds from the two galaxies. The resulting values of infrared luminosity agree with observations. The main mode of triggered star formation is via clusters of stars, thus we can naturally explain the formation of young, luminous star clusters observed in starburst galaxies.

8.1. Magnetic phenomena in galactic nuclei

The magnetic environment of the Galactic nucleus contrasts sharply with that of the Galactic disk. The inner few hundred parsecs of our Galaxy appear to be dominated by a strong (~milligauss) and uniform dipole field which dominates the pressure within the central intercloud medium. An attractive hypothesis for the origin of the central vertical field is that it results from the concentration of protogalactic field by radial inflow of gas throughout the Galaxy's lifetime. The predominant orientation of the magnetic field within dense molecular clouds is parallel to the galactic plane, which can be understood in terms of the strong tidal shear to which these clouds are subjected. The contrasting geometries of the cloud and intercloud fields allow for magnetic field line reconnection at cloud surfaces, which, under the right circumstances, could produce the relativistic electrons which delineate the nonthermal radio filaments near the Galactic center with their synchrotron emission. The characteristics of the Galactic center “magnetosphere” should be generalizable to all gas-rich spiral galaxies. Inadequate spatial resolution currently prevents us from exploring magnetic fields in other galactic nuclei to the same depth as in the Galactic center, but existing evidence is consistent with similar magnetic geometries elsewhere.

2D Chemodynamical Simulations of Low-Mass Galaxies

Because of their low gravitational energy, low-mass galaxies are seriously affected by energetical processes in their interstellar medium, such as supernova explosions, or by gravitational perturbations, e.g., by neighbouring galaxies. This can reasonably explain their variety of morphological types. If the evolutionary timescales of galaxies are predominantly determined by internal processes, the multi-phase character as well as star-gas interactions and phase transitions have to be taken into account. For this purpose we have developed a numerical treatment of the dynamical behaviour of gas and stars, which also accounts for the metal dependence of some processes and which can trace the chemical evolution for different elements. This so-called chemodynamical treatment is described in detail in Theis et al. (1992) and Samland et al. (1997). It considers three stellar components and devides the gas into clouds (CM, with a mass spectrum) and a hot intercloud medium (ICM). Since the element enhancement of the interstellar medium is produced by different processes with different lifetimes of their progenitors, O, Fe, and N are used as tracer elements to represent supernovae type II (SNell), type la (SNela), and planetary nebulae (PNe) contributions. While supernovae form the ICM, PNe only attribute to the CM so that only mixing effects of both gas phases can alter abundance ratios. Due to limited computer capacities the first chemodynamical simulations of dwarf galaxies could be performed only one-dimensionally so far (see e.g., Hensler et al. 1993, 1998). The recently developed two-dimensional chemodynamical code CoDEx (Samland 1994) was first applied to massive disk galaxies and produced models of which a particular one could represent various chemical and structural observations of the Milky Way with striking agreement (Samland et al. 1997).

New Insights on the Local ISM from EUV Observations

New results from EUVE are reviewed, with emphasis on the ionization state of the ISM and the question of thermal pressure balance between warm clouds and the hot intercloud medium. A description of what may be expected from the next generation of experiments, some to be launched shortly, will also be presented.

EUVE Observations of the Seyfert Galaxy MRK 279

We report EUVE spectral and photometric data of the Seyfert 1 galaxy MRK 279. The photometric data show large amplitude variations over time scales less than 10,000 s. The spectrum is characterized by several features between 80 and 100 Å. We compare the observed data with several models. We can rule out the possibility that the EUV emission is from a diffuse corona or intercloud medium. Models that assume the soft X-ray/EUV emission results from reprocessing in an optical BLR region are also inconsistent with the data. A collisional excitation model is consistent with the observations but requires a cloud density ≥ 1011 cm−3.