Dust destruction by the reverse shock in the clumpy supernova remnant Cassiopeia A based on hydrodynamic simulations

Abstract

Observations of the ejecta of core-collapse supernovae have shown that dust grains form in over-dense gas clumps in the expanding ejecta. The clumps are later subject to the passage of the reverse shock and a significant amount of the newly formed dust material can be destroyed due to the high temperatures and high velocities in the post-shock gas. To determine dust survival rates, we have performed a set of hydrodynamic simulations using the grid-based code AstroBEAR in order to model a shock wave interacting with a clump of gas and dust. Afterwards, dust motions and dust destruction rates are computed using our newly developed external, post-processing code Paperboats, which includes gas and plasma drag, grain charging, kinematic and thermal sputtering as well as grain-grain collisions. We have determined dust survival rates for the oxygen-rich supernova remnant Cassiopeia A as a function of initial grain sizes, dust materials and clump gas densities.