Rotational Disruption of Astrophysical Dust and Ice: Theory and
  Applications
  Dust is an essential component of the interstellar medium (ISM) and plays an
important role in many different astrophysical processes and phenomena.
Traditionally, dust grains are known to be destroyed by thermal sublimation,
Coulomb explosions, sputtering, and shattering. The first two mechanisms arise
from the interaction of dust with intense radiation fields and high-energy
photons (extreme UV), which work in a limited astrophysical environment. The
present review is focused on a new destruction mechanism present in the {\it
dust-radiation interaction} that is effective in a wide range of radiation
fields and has ubiquitous applications in astrophysics. We first describe this
new mechanism of grain destruction, namely rotational disruption induced by
Radiative Torques (RATs) or RAdiative Torque Disruption (RATD). We then discuss
rotational disruption of nanoparticles by mechanical torques due to supersonic
motion of grains relative to the ambient gas, which is termed MEchanical Torque
Disruption (METD). These two new mechanisms modify properties of dust and ice
(e.g., size distribution and mass), which affects observational properties,
including dust extinction, thermal and nonthermal emission, and polarization.
We present various applications of the RATD and METD mechanisms for different
environments, including the ISM, star-forming regions, astrophysical
transients, and surface astrochemistry.
