A Dusty Locale: evolution of galactic dust populations from Milky Way to dwarf-mass galaxies

Observations indicate dust populations vary between galaxies and within them, suggesting a complex life cycle and evolutionary history. Here we investigate the evolution of galactic dust populations across cosmic time using a suite of cosmological zoom-in simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments project, spanning M_vir = 10⁹⁻¹²M; M_∗ = 10⁶⁻¹¹ M. Our simulations incorporate a dust evolution model that accounts for the dominant sources of dust production, growth, and destruction and follows the evolution of specific dust species. All galactic dust populations in our suite exhibit similar evolutionary histories, with gas–dust accretion being the dominant producer of dust mass for all but the most metal-poor galaxies. Similar to previous works, we find the onset of efficient gas–dust accretion occurs above a ‘critical’ metallicity threshold (Z_crit). Due to this threshold, our simulations reproduce observed trends between galactic D/Z and metallicity and element depletion trends in the interstellar medium. However, we find Z_crit varies between dust species due to differences in key element abundances, dust physical properties, and life cycle processes resulting in Z_crit ∼ 0.05Z, 0.2Z, 0.5Z for metallic iron, silicates, and carbonaceous dust, respectively. These variations could explain the lack of small carbonaceous grains observed in the Magellanic Clouds. We also find a delay between the onset of gas–dust accretion and when a dust population reaches equilibrium, which we call the equilibrium time-scale (τ_equil). The relation between τ_equil and the metal enrichment time-scale of a galaxy, determined by its recent evolutionary history, can contribute to the scatter in the observed relation between galactic D/Z and metallicity.