Dust-regulated galaxy formation and evolution: A new chemodynamical model with live dust particles

Abstract

Interstellar dust plays decisive roles in the conversion of neutral to molecular hydrogen (H2), the thermodynamical evolution of interstellar medium (ISM), and the modification of spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of galaxies. These important roles of dust have not been selfconsistently included in previous numerical simulations of galaxy formation and evolution. We have therefore developed a new model by which one can investigate whether and how galaxy formation and evolution can be influenced by dust-related physical processes such as photoelectric heating, H2 formation on dust, and stellar radiation pressure on dust in detail. A novel point of the model is that different dust species in a galaxy are represented by 'live dust' particles (i.e. not test particles). Therefore, dust particles in a galaxy not only interact gravitationally with all four components of the galaxy (i.e. dark matter, stars, gas, and dust) but also are grown and destroyed through physical processes of ISM. First, we describe a way to include dust-related physical processes in N-body+hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy evolution in detail. Then, we show some preliminary results of dust-regulated galaxy evolution. The preliminary results suggest that the evolution of dust distributions driven by radiation pressure of stars is very important for the evolution of star formation rates, chemical abundances, H2 fractions, and gas distributions in galaxies.