2015ApJ...808...98L

We present the results of extinction measurements toward the main ejecta shell of the Cassiopeia A supernova (SN) remnant using the flux ratios between the two near-infrared (NIR) [Fe ii] lines at 1.26 and 1.64 µm. We find a clear correlation between the NIR extinction () and the radial velocity of ejecta knots, showing that redshifted knots are systematically more obscured than blueshifted ones. This internal ''self-extinction'' strongly indicates that a large amount of SN dust resides inside and around the main ejecta shell. At one location in the southern part of the shell, we measure by the SN dust of 0.23±0.05 mag. By analyzing the spectral energy distribution of thermal dust emission at that location, we show that there are warm (∼100 K) and cool (∼40 K) SN dust components and that the latter is responsible for the observed. We investigate the possible grain species and size of each component and find that the warm SN dust needs to be silicate grains such as MgSiO₃, Mg₂SiO₄, and SiO₂, whereas the cool dust could be either small (≲0.01 µm) Fe or large (≳0.1 µm) Si grains. We suggest that the warm and cool dust components in Cassiopeia A represent grain species produced in diffuse SN ejecta and in dense ejecta clumps, respectively.