A laboratory study of water ice erosion by low-energy ions

Abstract

Water ice covers the surface of various objects in the outer Solar system. Within the heliopause, surface ice is constantly bombarded and sputtered by energetic particles from the solar wind and magnetospheres. We report a laboratory investigation of the sputtering yield of water ice when irradiated at 10 K by 4 keV singly (13C+, N+, O+, Ar+) and doubly charged ions (13C2+, N2+, O2+). The experimental values for the sputtering yields are in good agreement with the prediction of a theoretical model. There is no significant difference in the yield for singly and doubly charged ions. Using these yields, we estimate the rate of water ice erosion in the outer Solar system objects due to solar wind sputtering. Temperature-programmed desorption of the ice after irradiation with 13C+ and 13C2+ demonstrated the formation of 13CO and 13CO2, with 13CO being the dominant formed species.

arXiv comment10 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication at MNRAS

References in corpus (6)

• The Active Centaurs
• The Dynamics of Known Centaurs
• Do Centaurs preserve their source inclinations?
• Water ice in the Kuiper belt
• Sputtering of Oxygen Ice by Low Energy Ions
• Experimental study of surface erosion processes of the icy moons of Jupiter

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• Three-Dimensional Modeling of Callisto's Surface Sputtered Exosphere Environment
• First experimental data of sulphur ions sputtering water ice