Trapped Water on Silicates in the Laboratory and in Astrophysical Environments

Abstract

The existence of strongly bound water molecules on silicate surfaces, above the desorption temperature of water ice, was first predicted by computational studies and has recently been demonstrated by laboratory experiments. Such trapped water may be present in various astrophysical environments and there is now evidence for its presence in the diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) and in extraterrestrial particles. We present here new results of a laboratory study of the phenomenon of trapping (strong bonding) of water molecules by silicates. We show that the efficiency of the trapping is strongly dependent on the properties and composition of the surface. Our results point out that the presence of trapped water should be due to the hydrophilic properties of the silicate surface and that the nature of the trapping is physical (physisorption rather than chemisorption). We demonstrate that water can be trapped on silicates up to temperatures of about 470 K, which speaks for the presence of wet silicate grains in the terrestrial planet formation zone in planet-forming disks. Studying the thermal and UV stability of trapped water, we conclude that the detection of trapped water in the diffuse ISM speaks for its efficient continuous formation. We discuss our results as relevant to fundamental scientific questions, such as the oxygen depletion problem, the origin of water on Earth, and the formation of rocky planets.

Keywords

• Interstellar dust
• Laboratory astrophysics
• Surface processes