On origin and destruction of relativistic dust and its implication for ultrahigh energy cosmic rays

Abstract

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 this paper, we first revisit the problem of acceleration by radiation pressure and calculate maximum grain velocities achieved. We find that grains can be accelerated to relativistic speeds with Lorentz factor $\gamma < 2$ by powerful radiation sources, which is lower than earlier estimates showing that $\gamma$ could reach $\sim 10$. We then investigate different destruction mechanisms for relativistic grains traversing a variety of environments. In solar radiation, we find that the destruction by thermal sublimation and Coulomb explosions is important. We also quantify grain destruction due to electronic sputtering by ions and grain-grain collisions. Electronic sputtering is found to be rather inefficient, whereas the evaporation following grain-grain collisions is shown to be an important mechanism for which the $a \sim 0.01- 1\mu$m grains would be destroyed after sweeping a gas column $N_{Coul}\sim 5\times 10^{19}-5\times 10^{20}cm^{-2}$. Relativistic dust in the interstellar medium and intergalactic medium (IGM) would be disrupted by Coulomb explosions due to collisional charging after traversing a gas column $N_{Coul} \sim 10^{17}cm^{-2}$ unless grain material is very strong. We show that photoelectric emission by optical and ultraviolet background radiation is also significant for the destruction of relativistic dust in the IGM. The obtained results indicate that relativistic dust from galaxies would be destroyed before reaching the Earth's atmosphere and unlikely to account for UHECRs.