# Dust-to-Gas Ratio and Phase Transition of Interstellar Medium

## 1 Introduction

Recent chemical evolution models of galaxies including the dust content are successful in explaining the dust amount of nearby galaxies (Wang wang (1991); Lisenfeld & Ferrara lisenfeld (1998); Dwek dwek (1998); Hirashita 1999a , hereafter H99; see also Takagi, Arimoto, & Vansevičius takagi (1999)). Supernovae (SNe) are the dominant source of the formation of dust grains (Dwek & Scalo dwekscalo (1980)), and SN shocks destroy grains (Jones et al. jones (1994); Borkowski & Dwek borkowski (1995)). Thus, in those models are dust content connected with star formation histories.

In our previous work, H99, the dust-to-gas ratio was expressed as a function of metallicity (see also Lisenfeld & Ferrara lisenfeld (1998)), which is also related to star formation histories. It confirmed the suggestion proposed by Dwek (dwek (1998)) that the accretion process onto preexisting dust grains is efficient in spiral galaxies. However, since the accretion is effective in cold clouds, the global efficiency of the accretion depends on the fraction of the gas in cold phase (Seab seab (1987); McKee mckee (1989); Draine draine (1990)). Thus, the efficiency varies on a timescale of $`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr by the phase transition of the ISM (Ikeuchi ikeuchi (1988); McKee mckee (1989)).

In this Letter, we combine the framework of H99 with a theoretical work on multiphase ISM by Ikeuchi & Tomita (ikeuchitomita (1983)), whose limit-cycle model of the ISM phase transition is applied to the result in Tomita, Tomita, & Saitō (tomita (1996)) by Kamaya & Takeuchi (kamaya (1997); hereafter KT97). In the limit-cycle model, mass fraction of each phase oscillates continuously because of mass exchange among the components of the phases. The timescale of the phase transition in the model is determined by a few parameters intrinsic to a spiral galaxy; sweeping rate of SN shocks, evaporation rate of the cold gas, and the cooling rate of the gas heated by SN shocks. Actually, a static solution as well as the limit-cycle solution for the filling factors of the three components is possible depending on the parameters. However, the oscillatory behaviour (i.e., the limit-cycle model) of the filling factors is supported observationally. Indeed, the observed scatter of the far-infrared-to-optical flux ratios of spiral galaxies (Tomita, Tomita, & Saitō tomita (1996)) is interpreted through the limit-cycle model in KT97. KT97 suggested that the fraction of the gas mass (i.e., the mass filling factor) in the cold phase changes in the range of 0.1 to 0.7 (or more) on the timescale of $`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr (see also Korchagin, Ryabtsev, & Vorobyov korchagin (1994)).

This Letter is organized as follows. In §2, we investigate the variation of the dust-to-gas ratio due to the phase transition of ISM in spiral galaxies. Finally, we discuss the result in §3.

## 2 Grain growth in multiphase interstellar medium

The ISM in a spiral galaxy is composed of multiphase gas. McKee & Ostriker (mckeeostriker (1977)) constructed the model of the ISM with three components in a pressure equilibrium: the cold phase ($`T10^2`$ K and $`n10`$ cm<sup>-3</sup>), the warm phase ($`T10^4`$ K and $`n10^1`$ cm<sup>-3</sup>), and the hot phase ($`T10^6`$ K and $`n10^3`$ cm<sup>-3</sup>). Since the mass of the hot component is negligible in a galactic disc compared with the others, we only consider the warm and the cold gas.

Dwek (dwek (1998)) and H99 showed that the accretion of heavy elements onto preexisting dust grains is the dominant process for the growth of the dust content in spiral galaxies. Thus, we concentrate on the effect of the phase transition on the accretion.

The timescale of the grain growth through the accretion of heavy element, $`\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}`$, can be estimated by the duration of the collisions between heavy-elements atom and grains. According to Draine (draine (1990)), $`\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}5\times 10^7`$ yr in cold gas. Here, we should note that the accretion process is more effective in denser environments. The efficiency of the accretion is proportional to the square of the gas density if metallicity and dust-to-gas ratio are the same, since the densities of both metal and dust contribute to the efficiency. Therefore, among the three components of the ISM, we only consider the accretion process in the cold gas, the densest component of the ISM.

According to H99, the increase rate of dust mass by the accretion process in a galaxy, $`[dM_\mathrm{d}/dt]_{\mathrm{acc}}`$, is expressed as

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{dM_\mathrm{d}}{dt}}\right]_{\mathrm{acc}}={\displaystyle \frac{𝒟M_\mathrm{g}(1f)}{\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}}},`$ (1)   
where $`𝒟`$ is the dust-to-gas mass ratio, $`M_\mathrm{g}`$ is the total mass of ISM in the galaxy (i.e., $`M_\mathrm{d}=𝒟M_\mathrm{g}`$), $`f`$ is the fraction of the metal in dust phase, and $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is the accretion timescale of heavy elements onto dust grains (see Eq. 3 in H99). We note that the newly introduced parameter $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is different from $`\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}`$, since $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is the accretion timescale averaged over all the ISM phases. As commented above, the dust in the cold gas dominantly contributes to the accretion process. Thus, $`[dM_\mathrm{d}/dt]_{\mathrm{acc}}`$ can also be expressed in the following way:

$`\left[{\displaystyle \frac{dM_\mathrm{d}}{dt}}\right]_{\mathrm{acc}}={\displaystyle \frac{𝒟X_{\mathrm{cold}}M_\mathrm{g}(1f)}{\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}}},`$ (2)   
where $`X_{\mathrm{cold}}`$ represents the mass fraction of the cold phase to the total mass of ISM. Here, we assume that the values of $`𝒟`$ and $`f`$ are constant for each phase. McKee (mckee (1989)) showed that the mixing of phases makes the difference in the $`𝒟`$ values among phases negligible. We also expect that $`f`$ is treated as constant for all phases because of the mixing (Tenorio-Tagle tenorio (1996)). Combining equations (1) and (2), we finally obtain

$`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}={\displaystyle \frac{\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}}{X_{\mathrm{cold}}}}.`$ (3)   
According to Ikeuchi (ikeuchi (1988)) and KT97, $`X_{\mathrm{cold}}`$ can vary with the range of $`0.1\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}X_{\mathrm{cold}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}0.7`$ in $`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr. Therefore, from equation (3), we see that $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ varies in the range of $`1.4\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\tau _{\mathrm{accr}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}`$ on that timescale.

## 3 Discussions

We have shown in the previous section that the parameter $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}`$, the typical timescale of accretion of heavy elements onto dust grains, changes on a timescale of $`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr through phase transition of ISM. The range of $`\tau _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ is estimated as $`1.4\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\tau _{\mathrm{accr}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}10\tau _{\mathrm{grow}}`$, which is typically $`7\times 10^7\mathrm{yr}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\tau _{\mathrm{accr}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}5\times 10^8\mathrm{yr}`$. This means that the parameter $`\beta _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ (proportional to the efficiency of the accretion of heavy elements onto preexisting dust grains), defined in H99, changes by nearly an order of magnitude. Moreover, the timescale of the variation is much shorter than the typical timescale of the gas consumption in a galactic disc ($`\begin{array}{c}>\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}1`$ Gyr; Kennicutt, Tamblyn, & Congdon kennicutt (1994)). Thus, the dust-to-gas ratio in a spiral galaxy experiences a short-term ($`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr) variation with the amplitude of an order of magnitude.

The short-term variation can be tested by examining nearby spiral galaxies. The dust-to-gas ratios of the spiral galaxies shows scatter around their mean values even if the metallicity is almost the same (Issa, MacLaren, & Wolfendale issa (1990); see also H99). According to Figure 1 in H99, the theoretical lines almost reproduce the observed values. However, the dust-to-gas ratios of the Galaxy and M31 differ by several times. Both the galaxies lie in a range of $`5\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}\beta _{\mathrm{acc}}\begin{array}{c}<\hfill \\ \hfill \end{array}20`$. This means that we can explain the dust-to-gas ratios of these galaxies if $`\beta _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ changes by more than 4 times. Indeed, the discussion in §2 demonstrated that $`\beta _{\mathrm{acc}}`$ can change by more than 7 times on $`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr because of the phase change of ISM. Thus, it is possible to explain the scatter of the dust-to-gas ratios of spiral galaxies by considering the phase transition.

As for dwarf galaxies, we need another way to approach them, since the heavy element accretion in dwarf galaxies is much less efficient than spiral galaxies due to their small metallicity (Hirashita 1999b ). Because of their shallow gravitational potential, the mass outflow (e.g., Mac Low & Ferrara mac (1999)) can be responsible for the dust-to-gas ratio spread, as emphasized by Lisenfeld & Ferrara (lisenfeld (1998)).

We only have considered the dust formation process. However, we should also consider dust destruction. The dominant dust destruction occurs in the warm and hot phases in which SN shock waves propagate (Seab seab (1987)). This means that the destruction efficiency is expected to show anticorrelation with $`X_{\mathrm{cold}}`$. If a galaxy is in a higher-$`X_{\mathrm{cold}}`$ state, the dust destruction is more inefficient whereas the dust growth is faster. Thus, the variation of dust-to-gas ratio may become larger if we take into account the dust destruction.

Finally, we should note that it is still probable that the scatter is caused by observational uncertainty, since the dust-to-gas ratio is not a direct observable. However, from the discussion in §2, we can still propose that the dust-to-gas ratio varies on a timescale of $`10^{7\text{}8}`$ yr by nearly an order of magnitude.

###### Acknowledgements.

We would like to thank A. Ferrara, the referee, for careful reading and useful comments that improved this Letter. We acknowledge T. T. Takeuchi for kind helps and invaluable discussions. We are grateful to S. Mineshige for continuous encouragement. This work is supported by the Research Fellowship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for Young Scientists. We made extensive use of the NASA’s Astrophysics Data System Abstract Service (ADS).