The large amount of dust produced by this supernova may help explain the dust observed in young galaxies.

The HERschel Inventory of The Agents of Galaxy Evolution (HERITAGE) of the Magellanic Clouds will use dust emission to investigate the life cycle of matter in both the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC). Using the Herschel Space Observatory's PACS and SPIRE photometry cameras, we imaged a 2° × 8° strip through the LMC, at a position angle of ~22.5° as part of the science demonstration phase of the Herschel mission. We present the data in all 5 Herschel bands: PACS 100 and 160 μm and SPIRE 250, 350 and 500 μm. We present two dust models that both adequately fit the spectral energy distribution for the entire strip and both reveal that the SPIRE 500 μm emission is in excess of the models by ~6 to 17%. The SPIRE emission follows the distribution of the dust mass, which is derived from the model. The PAH-to-dust mass (f PAH) image of the strip reveals a possible enhancement in the LMC bar in agreement with previous work. We compare the gas mass distribution derived from the HI 21 cm and CO J = 1–0 line emission maps to the dust mass map from the models and derive gas-to-dust mass ratios (GDRs). The dust model, which uses the standard graphite and silicate optical properties for Galactic dust, has a very low GDR = 65-18 +15 making it an unrealistic dust model for the LMC. Our second dust model, which uses amorphous carbon instead of graphite, has a flatter emissivity index in the submillimeter and results in a GDR = 287-42 +25 that is more consistent with a GDR inferred from extinction.

This paper reports variations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) features that were found in Spitzer Space Telescope spectra of carbon-rich post-asymptotic giant branch (post-AGB) stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). The paper consists of two parts. The first part describes our Spitzer spectral observing programme of 24 stars including post-AGB candidates. The latter half of this paper presents the analysis of PAH features in 20 carbon-rich post-AGB stars in the LMC, assembled from the Spitzer archive as well as from our own programme. We found that five post-AGB stars showed a broad feature with a peak at 7.7 μm, that had not been classified before. Further, the 10–13 μm PAH spectra were classified into four classes, one of which has three broad peaks at 11.3, 12.3 and 13.3 μm rather than two distinct sharp peaks at 11.3 and 12.7 μm, as commonly found in H ii regions. Our studies suggest that PAHs are gradually processed while the central stars evolve from post-AGB phase to planetary nebulae, changing their composition before PAHs are incorporated into the interstellar medium. Although some metallicity dependence of PAH spectra exists, the evolutionary state of an object is more significant than its metallicity in determining the spectral characteristics of PAHs for LMC and Galactic post-AGB stars.

We searched the Spitzer Space Telescope data archive for Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe), which show the characteristic 17.4 and 18.9 μm features due to C₆₀, also known as buckminsterfullerene. Out of 338 objects with Spitzer/Infrared Spectrograph data, we found eleven C₆₀-containing PNe, six of which (Hen2-68, IC2501, K3-62, M1-6, M1-9 and SaSt2-3) are new detections, not known to contain C₆₀ prior to this work. The strongest 17.4 and 18.9 μm C₆₀ features are seen in Tc1 and SaSt2-3, and these two sources also prominently show the C₆₀ resonances at 7.0 and 8.5 μm. In the other nine sources, the 7.0 and 8.5 μm features due to C₆₀ are much weaker. We analysed the spectra, along with ancillary data, using the photoionization code cloudy to establish the atomic line fluxes, and determine the properties of the radiation field, as set by the effective temperature of the central star. In addition, we measured the infrared spectral features due to dust grains. We find that the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) profile over 6–9 μm in these C₆₀-bearing carbon-rich PNe is of the more chemically processed class A. The intensity ratio of 3.3 to 11.3 μm PAH indicates that the number of C-atoms per PAH in C₆₀-containing PNe is small compared to that in non-C₆₀ PNe. The Spitzer spectra also show broad dust features around 11 and 30 μm. Analysis of the 30 μm feature shows that it is strongly correlated with the continuum, and we propose that a single carbon-based carrier is responsible for both the continuum and the feature. The strength of the 11 μm feature is correlated to the temperature of the dust, suggesting that it is at least partially due to a solid-state carrier. The chemical abundances of C₆₀-containing PNe can be explained by asymptotic giant branch nucleosynthesis models for initially 1.5–2.5 M_⊙ stars with Z = 0.004. We plotted the locations of C₆₀-containing PNe on a face-on map of the Milky Way and we found that most of these PNe are outside the solar circle, consistent with low metallicity values. Their metallicity suggests that the progenitors are an older population.