The Herschel Virgo Cluster Survey. III. A constraint on dust grain lifetime in early-type galaxies
Bomans, D. J.; Bianchi, S.; Fritz, J.; De Looze, I.; Hunt, L. K.; Baes, M.; Dariush, A.; Bressan, A.; Bendo, G. J.; Boselli, A.; Cortese, L.; di Serego Alighieri, S.; Hughes, T. M.; Madden, S.; Pohlen, M.; Smith, M. W. L.; Verstappen, J.; Xilouris, E. M.; Gavazzi, G.; Zibetti, S.; Sabatini, S.; Corbelli, E.; Pierini, D.; Jones, A. P.; Fadda, D.; Vlahakis, C.; Grossi, M.; Giovanardi, C.; Davies, J. I.; Clemens, M. S.; Garcia-Appadoo, D. A.
Italy, France, Belgium, United Kingdom, Germany, United States, Chile, Portugal, Netherlands, Greece
Abstract
Passive early-type galaxies (ETGs) provide an ideal laboratory for studying the interplay between dust formation around evolved stars and its subsequent destruction in a hot gas. Using Spitzer-IRS and Herschel data we compare the dust production rate in the envelopes of evolved AGB stars with a constraint on the total dust mass. Early-type galaxies which appear to be truly passively evolving are not detected by Herschel. We thus derive a distance independent upper limit to the dust grain survival time in the hostile environment of ETGs of <46±25 Myr for amorphous silicate grains. This implies that ETGs which are detected at far-infrared wavelengths have acquired a cool dusty medium via interaction. Given likely time-scales for ram-pressure stripping, this also implies that only galaxies with dust in a cool (atomic) medium can release dust into the intra-cluster medium.
Herschel is an ESA space observatory with science instruments provided by European-led Principal Investigator consortia and with important participation from NASA.