Dust Masses, PAH Abundances, and Starlight Intensities in the SINGS Galaxy Sample
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- 10 July 2007
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal
- Vol. 663 (2) , 866-894
Abstract
Physical dust models are presented for 65 galaxies in the SINGS survey that are strongly detected in the four IRAC bands and three MIPS bands. For each galaxy we estimate (1) the total dust mass, (2) the fraction of the dust mass contributed by PAHs, and (3) the intensity of the starlight heating the dust grains. We find that spiral galaxies have dust properties resembling the dust in the local region of the Milky Way, with similar dust-to-gas ratio, and similar PAH abundance. The observed SEDs, including galaxies with SCUBA photometry, can be reproduced by dust models that do not require "cold" (T8.1, grains contain a substantial fraction of interstellar Mg, Si and Fe. Galaxies with A_O8.1 have a median q_PAH=3.55%. The derived dust masses favor a value X_CO approx 4e20 cm^{-2}(K kms)^{-1} for the CO to H_2 conversion factor. Except for some starbursting systems (Mrk33, Tolo89, NGC3049), dust in the diffuse ISM dominates the IR power.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical JournaKeywords
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