SPINNING DUST EMISSION FROM ULTRA-SMALL SILICATES: EMISSIVITY AND POLARIZATION SPECTRUM

Anomalous microwave emission (AME) is an important Galactic foreground of cosmic microwave background radiation. It is believed that AME arises from rotational emission by spinning polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the interstellar medium (ISM). In this paper, we suppose that a new population of ultra-small silicate grains perhaps exists in the ISM, and quantify the rotational emissivity from these tiny particles and its polarization spectrum. We find that spinning silicate nanoparticles can produce strong rotational emission when the tiny grains follow a log-normal size distribution. The polarization fraction of spinning dust emission from tiny silicates increases with decreasing dipole moment per atom (β) and can reach for at a grain temperature of 60 K. We identify a parameter space , with being the fraction of Si abundance in nanoparticles, in which its rotational emission can adequately reproduce both the observed AME and the polarization of the AME, without violating the observational constraints of ultraviolet extinction and polarization of starlight. Our results reveal that rotational emission from spinning silicate may be an important source of AME.