Related papers: The opacity limit
In order to interpret observations influenced by dust and to perform detailed modeling of the observable characteristics of dust-producing or dust-containing objects, knowledge of the micro-physical properties of relevant dust species are…
First stars play crucial roles in development of the universe, influencing events like cosmic reionization and the chemical enrichment. While first stars are conventionally thought to form at around $z \sim 20-30$ in the standard $\Lambda$…
Coagulation of submicron-sized dust grains into porous aggregates is the initial step of dust evolution in protoplanetary disks. Recently, it has been pointed out that negative charging of dust in the weakly ionized disks could…
We consider the thermal structure and radii of strongly irradiated gas giant planets over a range in mass and irradiating flux. The cooling rate of the planet is sensitive to the surface boundary condition, which depends on the detailed…
We investigate cosmological and astrophysical constraints on dark photons with masses $\sim 10^{-1}$-$10^3$ MeV. These dark photons can be copiously produced either in the early universe or during core-collapse supernovae, potentially…
We consider the structure of marginally Toomre-stable starburst disks under the assumption that radiation pressure on dust grains provides the dominant vertical support against gravity. This is particularly appropriate when the disk is…
The isothermal dynamical evolution of a clumpy and turbulent molecular cloud region and its fragmentation into a protostellar cluster is investigated numerically. The effect of different initial density and velocity distributions, generated…
Dust and gas energetics are incorporated into a cluster-scale simulation of star formation in order to study the effect of heating and cooling on the star formation process. We build on our previous work by calculating separately the dust…
The first massive stars may influence the formation of second-generation stars, in part by their metal enrichment of the surrounding gas. We investigate the "critical metallicity", defined as the the value, Z_crit, at which primordial gas…
Numerical simulations have shown that the often cited radiation pressure barrier to accretion onto massive stars can be circumvented, when the radiation field is highly anisotropic in the presence of a circumstellar accretion disk with high…
The crust of a neutron star is essentially determined by the low-density region ($\rho<\rho_0\approx0.15-0.16\unit{fm}^{-3}$) of the equation of state. At the bottom of the inner crust, where the density is $\rho\lesssim0.1\rho_0$, the…
Distant supernovae have been observed to be fainter than what is expected in a matter dominated universe. The most likely explanation is that the universe is dominated by an energy component with negative pressure -- dark energy. However,…
The influence of spatial dimensionality and particle-antiparticle pair production on the thermodynamic properties of the relativistic Fermi gas, at finite chemical potential, is studied. Resembling a kind of phase transition, qualitatively…
Grain growth in planet-forming disks is the first step toward the formation of planets. The growth of grains and their inward drift leaves a distinct imprint on the dust surface-density distribution and the resulting surface-brightness…
We investigate the sources and amount of dust in early galaxies. We discuss dust nucleation in stellar atmospheres using published extended atmosphere models, stellar evolution tracks and nucleation conditions and conclude that the (TPAGB)…
The wavelength dependences of interstellar extinction and polarization, supplemented by observed elemental abundances and the spectrum of infrared emission from dust heated by starlight, strongly constrain dust models. One dust model that…
The standard theoretical estimation of the thermal dark matter abundance may be significantly altered if properties of dark matter particles in the early universe and at the present cosmological epoch differ. This may happen if, e.g., a…
Turbulent coagulation in protoplanetary disks is known to operate on timescale far shorter than the lifetime of the disk. In the absence of mechanisms that replenish the small dust grain population, protoplanetary disks would rapidly lose…
A model of core-clump accretion with equally likely stopping describes star formation in the dense parts of clusters, where models of isolated collapsing cores may not apply. Each core accretes at a constant rate onto its protostar, while…
The thermal emission of dust is one of the most important tracers of the interstellar medium: multi-wavelength photometry in the far-infrared (FIR) and submillimeter (submm) can be fitted with a model, providing estimates of the dust mass.…