Very Cold Grains in the Interstellar Medium

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Abstract
Infrared emission from very small graphite grains under conditions of temperature spiking using both quantized emission and absorption algorithms has been investigated. Quantization of the emission process, which has not been previously considered, shows that the internal or lattice temperature of such grains can be reduced toTT<2.7 K. In addition, a subset of these may be transiently at 0 K. Such very cold grains will be present in diffuse and, to some extent, in dark clouds and could be detected through long-wavelength absorption against the cosmic microwave background.