Irradiation of Condensed Gases: Physical Mechanisms and Astrophysical Implications

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This award supports a three year laboratory project on the sputtering of ices in the outer solar system and the interstellar medium. Sputtering may be produced by magnetnospheric and solar wind plasmas, shock-produced plasmas, and, also by ultraviolet photon bombardment of icy rings particles, grains, or natural satellite surfaces. In this program the group will study photo- desorption of a few of the ices for which only electronic- stimulated sputtering by fast ions and electrons had been examined in order to test estimates of photo-sputtering yields. This work will proceed in parallel with plasma-ion sputtering experiments. In this project emphasis will be on certain ice mixtures of interest in the outer solar system and measurements of the vapor pressure of (sublimation flux from) the plasma-ion-irradiated surfaces.