Related papers: Relativistic Gas Drag on Dust Grains and Implicati…
The Breakthrough Starshot initiative aims to launch a gram-scale spacecraft to a speed of $v\sim 0.2$c, capable of reaching the nearest star system, $\alpha$ Centauri, in about 20 years. However, a critical challenge for the initiative is…
Dust grains may be accelerated to relativistic speeds by radiation pressure, diffusive shocks, and other acceleration mechanisms. Such relativistic grains have been suggested as primary particles of ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECRs). In…
Interstellar medium is turbulent and this induces relative motions of dust grains. We calculate relative velocities of charged grains in a partially ionized magnetized gas. We account for anisotropy of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence,…
Supernova ejecta and stellar winds are believed to produce interstellar dust grains with relatively large sizes. Smaller grains can be produced via the shattering of large grains that have been stochastically accelerated. To understand this…
The problem of simulating the interaction of spacecraft travelling at velocities necessary for starflight with the interplanetary and interstellar medium is considered. Interaction of protons, atoms, and ions at kinetic energies relative to…
A relativistic spacecraft of the type envisioned by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative will inevitably get charged through collisions with interstellar particles and UV photons. Interstellar magnetic fields would, therefore, deflect the…
Interstellar dust grains exhibit complex dynamics which is essential for understanding many key interstellar processes that involve dust, including grain alignment, grain growth, grain shattering etc. Grain rotational and translational…
We newly introduce lift force into the aerodynamics of dust grains in the protoplanetary disk. Although many authors have so far investigated the effects of the drag force, gravitational force and electric force on the dust grains, the lift…
Diffusive shock acceleration (DSA) is a prominent mechanism for energizing charged particles up to very large rigidities at astrophysical collisionless shocks. In addition to ions and electrons, it has been proposed that interstellar dust…
Achieving relativistic flight to enable extrasolar exploration is one of the dreams of humanity and the long term goal of our NASA Starlight program. We derive a fully relativistic solution for the motion of a spacecraft propelled by…
Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain the alignment of grains with the interstellar magnetic field, including paramagnetic dissipation, radiative torques, and supersonic gas-grain streaming. These must compete with disaligning…
To facilitate the study of black hole fueling, star formation, and feedback in galaxies, we outline a method for treating the radial forces on interstellar gas due to absorption of photons by dust grains. The method gives the correct…
Recently, Hoang et al. (arXiv:1608.05284) reported analysis of the interaction of relativistic spacecrafts with interstellar medium (ISM, i.e. gas atoms and dust particles) relevant for the Breakthrough starshot initiative…
We investigate the dynamics of interstellar dust particles in moderately high resolution ($512^3$ grid points) simulations of forced compressible transonic turbulence including self-gravity of the gas. Turbulence is induced by stochastic…
Grains exposed to anisotropic radiation fields are subjected to forces due to the asymmetric photon-stimulated ejection of particles. These forces act in addition to the ``radiation pressure'' due to absorption and scattering. Here we model…
Theoretical studies have revealed that dust grains are usually moving fast through the turbulent interstellar gas, which could have significant effects upon interstellar chemistry by modifying grain accretion. This effect is investigated in…
Radiative torques on irregular dust grains, in addition to producing superthermal rotation, play a direct dynamical role in the alignment of interstellar dust with the local magnetic field. The equations governing the orientation of…
In dusty cool-star outflow or ejection events around AGB or RCB-like stars, dust is accelerated by radiation from the star and coupled to the gas via collisional drag forces. But it has recently been shown that such dust-gas mixtures are…
A systematic analysis of methods for computing the trajectories of solid-phase particles applied in modern astrophysics codes designed for modeling gas-dust circumstellar disks has been carried out for the first time. The motion of grains…
We study the motion of dust grains into the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) around redshift z=3, to test the hypothesis that grains can efficiently pollute the gas with metals through sputtering. We use the results available in the literature…