Heavy ion irradiation of crystalline water ice

Abstract

Under cosmic irradiation, the interstellar water ice mantles evolve towards a compact amorphous state. Crystalline ice amorphisation was previously monitored mainly in the keV to hundreds of keV ion energies. We experimentally investigate heavy ion irradiation amorphisation of crystalline ice, at high energies closer to true cosmic rays, and explore the water-ice sputtering yield. We irradiated thin crystalline ice films with MeV to GeV swift ion beams, produced at the GANIL accelerator. The ice infrared spectral evolution as a function of fluence is monitored with in-situ infrared spectroscopy (induced amorphisation of the initial crystalline state into a compact amorphous phase). The crystalline ice amorphisation cross-section is measured in the high electronic stopping-power range for different temperatures. At large fluence, the ice sputtering is measured on the infrared spectra, and the fitted sputtering-yield dependence, combined with previous measurements, is quadratic over three decades of electronic stopping power. The final state of cosmic ray irradiation for porous amorphous and crystalline ice, as monitored by infrared spectroscopy, is the same, but with a large difference in cross-section, hence in time scale in an astrophysical context. The cosmic ray water-ice sputtering rates compete with the UV photodesorption yields reported in the literature. The prevalence of direct cosmic ray sputtering over cosmic-ray induced photons photodesorption may be particularly true for ices strongly bonded to the ice mantles surfaces, such as hydrogen-bonded ice structures or more generally the so-called polar ices.

arXiv comment22pages, 11 figures, accepted in A&A

References in corpus (7)

• The Spitzer ice legacy: Ice evolution from cores to protostars
• The c2d Spitzer Spectroscopic Survey of Ices Around Low-Mass Young Stellar Objects: I. H2O and the 5-8 um Bands
• Photodesorption of Ices II: H2O and D2O
• New Three Micron Spectra of Young Stellar Objects with H_2O Ice Bands
• A Study of Absorption Features in the Three Micron Spectra of Molecular Cloud Sources with H${}_2$O Ice Bands
• Near-infrared observations of water-ice in OH/IR stars
• H2O vapor excitation in dusty AGB envelopes. A PACS view of OH 127.8+0.0

Cited by in corpus (31)

• Formation of Complex Molecules in Prestellar Cores: a Multilayer Approach
• Chemical complexity induced by efficient ice evaporation in the Barnard 5 molecular cloud
• X-ray photodesorption from water ice in protoplanetary disks and X-ray dominated regions
• The evolution of grain mantles and silicate dust growth at high redshift
• Non-thermal desorption of complex organic molecules: Cosmic-ray sputtering of CH3OH embedded in CO2 ice
• Chemical nitrogen fractionation in dense molecular clouds
• Composition and thermal properties of Ganymede's surface from JWST/NIRSpec and MIRI observations
• CO depletion: a microscopic perspective
• Laboratory Experiments on the Radiation Astrochemistry of Water Ice Phases
• The ortho-to-para ratio of water in interstellar clouds
• The efficiency of photodissociation for molecules in interstellar ices
• Influence of the ice structure on the soft UV photochemistry of PAHs embedded in solid water
• Surface chemistry in photodissociation regions
• Quantifying the chemical desorption of H${}_2$S and PH${}_3$ from amorphous water ice surfaces
• Gas phase Elemental abundances in Molecular cloudS (GEMS) V. Methanol in Taurus
• Perturbation of the Surface of Amorphous Solid Water by the Adsorption of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons
• Photo-desorption of H2O:CO:NH3 circumstellar ice analogs: Gas-phase enrichment
• Accretion and photodesorption of CO ice as a function of the incident angle of deposition
• Refractive index and extinction coefficient of vapor-deposited water ice in the UV-Vis range
• Vacuum ultraviolet photodesorption and photofragmentation of formaldehyde-containing ices
• Mechanism of Indirect Photon-induced Desorption at the Water Ice Surface
• Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS: Evidence for Galactic Cosmic Ray Processing
• Euclid preparation. XXIX. Water ice in spacecraft part I: The physics of ice formation and contamination
• The Efficiency of Noble Gas Trapping in Astrophysical Environments
• Photochemistry of interstellar ice forming Complex Organic Molecules
• On Modelling Sputtering of Interstellar Grain Ices
• The Interstellar Medium toward the Galactic Center Source 2MASS J17470898-2829561
• The Cosmic-Ray Induced Sputtering Process On Icy Grains
• Radiation sputtering of hydrocarbon ices at Europa-relevant temperatures
• Quantifying the temperature-dependent yields of N${}_2$ and N${}_2$H${}_4$ formation in vacuum-ultraviolet-irradiated NH${}_3$ ice
• Peculiar rainbows in Saturn's E ring: Uncovering luminous bands near Enceladus