Is water ice an efficient facilitator for dust coagulation?

TL;DR

This study systematically reviews how water ice influences dust particle coagulation in space, revealing that under realistic conditions, water ice does not necessarily promote growth as previously thought, with implications for planet formation theories.

Contribution

The paper re-evaluates the role of water ice in dust coagulation using contact mechanics and tribology theories, challenging prior assumptions about its facilitative effect in protoplanetary environments.

Findings

Lubrication theories explain most experimental data due to quasi-liquid layers.

Dynamic low-temperature collisions align with JKR theory, indicating minimal energy dissipation.

Water ice formation does not always enhance dust coagulation under space-like vacuum conditions.

Abstract

Beyond the snow line of protoplanetary discs and inside the dense core of molecular clouds, the temperature of gas is low enough for water vapour to condense into amorphous ices on the surface of preexisting refractory dust particles. Recent numerical simulations and laboratory experiments suggest that condensation of the vapour promotes dust coagulation in such a cold region. However, in the numerical simulations, cohesion of refractory materials is often underestimated, while in the laboratory experiments, water vapour collides with surfaces at more frequent intervals compared to the real conditions. Therefore, to re-examine the role of water ice in dust coagulation, we carry out systematic investigation of available data on coagulation of water ice particles by making full use of appropriate theories in contact mechanics and tribology. We find that the majority of experimental data are reasonably well explained by lubrication theories, owing to the presence of a quasi-liquid layer (QLL). Only exceptions are the results of dynamic collisions between particles at low temperatures, which are, instead, consistent with the JKR theory, because QLLs are too thin to dissipate their kinetic energies. By considering the vacuum conditions in protoplanetary discs and molecular clouds, the formation of amorphous water ice on the surface of refractory particles does not necessarily aid their collisional growth as currently expected. While crystallisation of water ice around but outside the snow line eases coagulation of ice-coated particles, sublimation of water ice inside the snow line is deemed to facilitate coagulation of bare refractory particles.