Redistribution of ices between grain populations in protostellar envelopes. Only the coldest grains get ices

TL;DR

This study models how ices redistribute among different-sized dust grains in protostellar envelopes, revealing that only the coldest grains retain ices after heating and cooling, impacting early planetary formation processes.

Contribution

It introduces a kinetic chemical model with multiple grain sizes to analyze ice redistribution during protostellar envelope heating and cooling.

Findings

Ices predominantly re-adsorb onto the coldest grains during heating.

Most grains become ice-poor and bare before disk formation.

Ices are stratified on grains based on sublimation temperatures.

Abstract

Context. Matter that falls onto a protoplanetary disk (PPD) from a protostellar envelope is heated before it cools again. This induces sublimation and subsequent re-adsorption of ices that accumulated during the prestellar phase. Aims. We explore the fate of ices on multiple-sized dust grains in a parcel of infalling matter. Methods. A comprehensive kinetic chemical model using five grain-size bins with different temperatures was applied for an infalling parcel. The parcel was heated to 150 K and then cooled over a total timescale of 20 kyr. Effects on ice loss and re-accumulation by the changed gas density, the maximum temperature, the irradiation intensity, the size-dependent grain temperature trend, and the distribution of the ice mass among the grain-size bins were investigated. Results. A massive selective redistribution of ices exclusively onto the surface of the coldest grain-size bin occurs in all models. The redistribution starts already during the heating stage, where ices that are sublimated from warmer grains re-adsorb onto colder grains before complete sublimation. During the cooling stage, the sublimated molecules re-freeze again onto the coldest grains. In the case of full sublimation, this re-adsorption is delayed and occurs at lower temperatures because a bare grain surface has lower molecular desorption energies in our model. Conclusions. Most protostellar envelope grains enter the PPD ice poor (bare). Ices are carried by a single coldest grain-size bin, here representing 12 % of the total grain surface area. This bare ice-grain dualism can affect the rate of the grain coagulation. The ice components are stratified on the grains according to their sublimation temperatures.