Dust Radiative Transfer Model of Spectral Energy Distributions in Clumpy, Galactic Environments

  • Published : 2018.10.10

Abstract

The shape of a galaxy's spectral energy distribution ranging from ultraviolet (UV) to infrared (IR) wavelengths provides crucial information about the underlying stellar populations, metal contents, and star-formation history. Therefore, analysis of the SED is the main means through which astronomers study distant galaxies. However, interstellar dust absorbs and scatters UV and optical light, re-emitting the absorbed energy in the mid-IR and Far-IR. I present the updated 3D Monte-Carlo radaitive transfer code MoCafe to compute the radiative transfer of stellar, dust emission through a dusty medium. The code calculates the emission expected from dust not only in pure thermal equilibrium state but also in non-thermal equilibrium state. The stochastic heating of very small dust grains and/or PAHs is calculated by solving the transition probability matrix equation between different vibrational, internal energy states. The calculation of stochastic heating is computationally expensive. A pilot study of radiative transfer models of SEDs in clumpy (turbulent), galactic environments, which has been successfully used to understand the Calzetti attenuation curves in Seon & Draine (2016), is also presented.

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