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Grains of ice are formed spontaneously when water vapor is injected into a weakly-ionized laboratory plasma in which the background gas has been cooled to cryogenic temperatures comparable to those of deep space. These ice grains are…
Carbon dioxide is one of the three most abundant species within the ice mantles around dust grains inside molecular clouds. Since a substantial amount of interstellar grains is made of siliceous materials, we have studied the infrared…
The chemical inventory of protoplanetary midplanes is the basis for forming planetesimals. Among them, solid-state reactions based on CO/CO$_2$ toward molecular complexity on interstellar dust grains have been studied in theoretical and…
Amorphous solid water (ASW) is abundantly present in the interstellar medium, where it forms a mantle on interstellar dust particles and it is the precursor for cometary ices. In space, ASW acts as substrate for interstellar surface…
Currently ~36 different absorption bands have been detected in the infrared spectra of cold, dense interstellar and circumstellar environments. These are attributed to the vibrational transitions of ~17 different molecules frozen on dust…
Context. The chemical evolution of formamide (HCONH2), a molecule of astrobiological interest that has been tentatively identified in interstellar ices and in cometary coma, has been studied in laboratory under simulated astrophysical…
Solid-phase photo-processes involving icy dust grains greatly affect the chemical evolution of the interstellar medium by leading to the formation of complex organic molecules and by inducing photodesorption. So far, the focus of laboratory…
The mobility of atoms, molecules and radicals in icy grain mantles regulate ice restructuring, desorption, and chemistry in astrophysical environments. Interstellar ices are dominated by H2O, and diffusion on external and internal (pore)…
Far-infrared (FIR) and mid-infrared (MIR) fine-structure lines (FSLs) provide key diagnostics of physical conditions in the interstellar medium (ISM). Building on empirical relations established in our previous work, we use photoionization…
CO$_2$ ice is an important reservoir of carbon and oxygen in star and planet forming regions. Together with water and CO, CO$_2$ sets the physical and chemical characteristics of interstellar icy grain mantles, including desorption and…
The chemical and physical properties of interstellar dust in the densest regions of the Galaxy are still not well understood. X-rays provide a powerful probe since they can penetrate gas and dust over a wide range of column densities (up to…
[Abridged] The infrared ro-vibrational emission lines from organic molecules in the inner regions of protoplanetary disks are unique probes of the physical and chemical structure of planet forming regions and the processes that shape them.…
It has been implicitly assumed that ices on grains in molecular clouds and proto planetary disks are formed by homogeneous layers regardless of their composition or crystallinity. To verify this assumption, we observed the H2O deposition…
Carbon dioxide is abundant in ice mantles of dust grains; some is found in the pure crystalline form as inferred from the double peak splitting of the bending profile at about 650 cm$^{-1}$. To study how CO$_2$ segregates into the pure form…
Whether ice in cold cosmic environments is physically separated from the silicate dust or mixed with individual silicate moieties is not known. However, different grain models give very different compositions and temperatures of grains. The…
Freeze-out of the gas phase elements onto cold grains in dense interstellar and circumstellar media builds up ice mantles consisting of molecules that are mostly formed in situ (H2O, NH3, CO2, CO, CH3OH, and more). This review summarizes…
The modelling of molecular excitation and dissociation processes relevant to astrochemistry requires the validation of theories by comparison with data generated from laboratory experimentation. The newly commissioned Ice Chamber for…
Icy grain mantles are commonly observed through infrared spectroscopy toward dense clouds, cloud cores, protostellar envelopes and protoplanetary disks. Up to 80% of the available oxygen, carbon and nitrogen are found in such ices; the most…
We investigate the formation and evolution of interstellar dust-grain ices under dark-cloud conditions, with a particular emphasis on CO2. We use a three-phase model (gas/surface/mantle) to simulate the coupled gas--grain chemistry,…
The survival of astrophysical ices in the star-forming regions depends on the suitability of temperature, density and radiation conditions. In this paper, the role of Interstellar Radiation Field (ISRF) on ices in Elias 29 is addressed.…