Project 1.6: Experimental study of the fate of volatiles in proto-planetary discs
Within Project 1.6, we perform laboratory experiments with icy sample to better understand the behavior of ice and dust in the early phases of Solar Systems formation.
Experiments take place in the Laboratory for outflow Studies of Sublimating materials at the University of Bern. There, we prepare mixtures of icy and dust as analogues for various astrophysical environments. The analogues are then exposed to conditions of pressure, temperature, illumination… representative of their putative environments and we look at their evolution. Characterization techniques involve imagery, spectral imaging, bidirectional reflectance… The calibrated data are imported into DACE and made available to the community.
Key project members: Antoine Pommerol (Proj. lead), Holly Capelo (Postdoc), Stefano Spadaccia (PhD student)
Within Domain 1, there are strong links between this project and Project 1.1 (H.-M. Schmid, ETHZ) as the spectra-photometric results obtained in Project 1.6 could inform the analysis and interpretation of images of discs obtained by ZIMPOL. There are also strong links with the multi-physics simulation project 1.2 (L. Mayer, UZH) as we try to test experimentally some aspects of the models. Finally, all three projects dedicated to chondrites (1.3, I. Leya, UBE, 1.4. M. Schönbächler, ETHZ. 1.5, K. Mezger, UBE) provide us with crucial information about the nature of the dust to use in our experiments and access to powerful characterization methods.
