Maximally Dusty Star-forming Galaxies: Supernova Dust Production and Recycling in Local Group and High-redshift Galaxies

Abstract

Abstract Motivated by recent observations suggesting that core-collapse supernovae may on average produce ∼0.3 M ⊙ of dust, we explore a simple dust production scenario that applies to star-forming galaxies in the local environment (the Magellanic Clouds and possibly the Milky Way) as well as to high-redshift (submillimeter, QSO, Lyman-break) galaxies. We assume that the net dust destruction (due to supernova reverse shock, shocks in the interstellar medium, or astration) is negligible on a timescale of 1 Gyr, in which case the dust mass can be estimated as 0.004 times the star formation rate (for a Chabrier initial mass function) multiplied by the duration of the star formation episode. The model can account for observed dust masses over four orders of magnitude and across the redshift range 0–8.4, with dust production rates spanning five orders of magnitude. This suggests that star-forming galaxies may be seen as maximally dusty, in the sense that a dominant fraction of the dust-forming elements forged in a supernova eventually will go into the solid phase. In turn, this indicates little destruction of supernova dust or almost complete replenishment, on a short timescale, of any dust that is destroyed.