The cosmic dust rate across the Universe

Understand

We investigate the evolution of interstellar dust in the Universe by means of chemical evolution models of galaxies of different morphological types, reproducing the main observed features of present day galaxies.

• We adopt the most updated prescriptions for dust production from supernovae and asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars as well as for dust accretion and destruction processes.
• Then, we study the cosmic dust rate in the framework of three different cosmological scenarios for galaxy formation: i) a pure luminosity scenario (PLE), ii) a number density evolution scenario (DE), as suggested by the classical hierarchical clustering scenario and iii) an alternative scenario, in which both spirals and ellipticals are allowed to evolve in number on an observationally motivated basis.
• Our results give predictions about the evolution of the dust content in different galaxies as well as the cosmic dust rate as a function of redshift.