Entrapment of Hypervolatiles in Interstellar and Cometary H2O and CO2 Ice Analogs

Abstract

Planets and planetesimals acquire their volatiles through ice and gas accretion in protoplanetary disks. In these disks, the division of volatile molecules between the condensed and gaseous phases determines the quantity of volatiles accreted by planets in different regions of the disk. This division can be strongly affected by entrapment of volatiles into less volatile ice matrices, resulting in different radial profiles of common volatiles and elemental ratios than would otherwise be expected. In this study we use laboratory experiments to explore the ability of abundant interstellar and cometary ice matrices, i.e., H _2 O and CO _2 , to trap the hypervolatiles ^13 CO, ^12 CH _4 , ^15 N _2 , and Ar. We measure entrapment efficiencies through temperature programmed desorption for two ice thicknesses (10 and 50 monolayers) and two mixing ratios (3:1 and 10:1) for each matrix:volatile combination. We find that ice entrapment efficiencies increase with ice thickness and ice mixing ratio to a maximum of ∼65% for all hypervolatiles. Entrapment efficiencies are comparable for all hypervolatiles, and for the two ice matrices. We further find that the entrapment efficiency is relatively insensitive to the ice deposition temperature between 10 and 30 K with the possible exception of CH _4 in CO _2 ice. Together these results suggest that hypervolatile entrapment at low temperatures (<30 K) is a remarkably robust and species-independent process.

Keywords

• Astrochemistry
• Chemical abundances
• Planetary system formation
• Protoplanetary disks
• Planet formation