Simulating the effects of intergalactic grey dust

Abstract

Using a high-resolution cosmological hydrodynamic simulation, we present a method to constrain extinction due to intergalactic grey dust based on the observed magnitudes of distant Type IA supernovae. We apply several simple prescriptions to relate the intergalactic dust density to the gas density in the simulation, thereby obtaining dust extinctions that may be directly compared to the observed distribution of supernova magnitudes. Our analysis is sensitive to the spatial distribution of grey dust, but is not dependent on its intrinsic properties such as its opacity or grain size. We present an application of our technique to the supernova data of Perlmutter et al., who find that their high redshift sample is ~0.2 magnitudes fainter than the expectation for a non-accelerating, low-density universe. We find that for grey dust to be responsible, it must be distributed quite smoothly, e.g., tracing intergalactic gas. More realistic dust distributions, such as dust tracing the metal density, are inconsistent with observations at the 1.5-2 sigma level. Upcoming observations and improved modelling of the dust distribution should lead to stronger constraints on intergalactic grey dust extinction.