The production of dust in the Magellanic Clouds

Abstract The sensitivity of the Infrared Spectrograph on the Spitzer Space Telescope has enabled detailed surveys of mass-losing stars in the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Comparisons of samples from these galaxies and the Milky Way reveal how the dust produced by evolved stars depends on the metallicity of the host environment. Oxygen-rich stars show several trends with metallicity. In more metal-poor environments, fewer of them show dust excesses, the circumstellar SiO absorption grows weaker, the quantity of silicate dust decreases, and alumina dust grows rare. As carbon stars grow more metal-poor, the amount of circumstellar acetylene gas increases, while the amount of trace dust elements like SiC and MgS decreases. However, there is little dependence on metallicity in the amount of amorphous carbon dust produced by carbon stars, because they produce the carbon needed to make dust themselves. As galaxies grow more metal-poor, the composition of the dust they produce should grow more carbon rich.