Spinning Nanoparticles Impacted by C-shock: Implications for Radio-millimeter Emission from Star-forming Regions

Abstract

We investigate the impact of anomalous microwave emission (AME) on the radio-millimeter spectral energy distribution for three typical interstellar medium (ISM) conditions surrounding star-forming regions—cold neutral medium, warm neutral medium, and photodissociation regions—by comparing the emissivities of three major contributors: free–free, thermal dust emission, and AME. In particular, for spinning nanoparticles (i.e., potential carriers of AME), we consider a known grain destruction mechanism due to a centrifugal force from spin-up processes caused by collisions between dust grains and supersonic neutral streams in a magnetized shock (C-shock). We demonstrate that, if the ISM in a magnetic field is impacted by a C-shock developed by a supernova explosion in the early phase of massive star formation (≲10 Myr), AME can be significantly or almost entirely suppressed relative to free–free and thermal dust continuum emission if the grain tensile strength is small enough. This study may shed light on explaining the rare observations of AME from extragalactic star-forming regions preferentially observed from massive star clusters and suggest a scenario of “the rise and fall of AME” in accordance with the temporal evolution of star-forming regions.