Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 February 2013
Ice desorption affects the evolution of the gas-phase chemistry during the protostellarstage, and also determines the ice composition of comets forming in circumstellar disks.From observations, most volatile species, including CO2, are found inH2O-dominated ices. In this study, the desorption of CO2 mixed inH2O ice and the impact of ice thickness, mixture ratio and heating rate areexperimentally determined. The results are used to parametrize an extended three-phasemodel (gas, ice surface and ice mantle) which describes ice mixture desorption using rateequations and a minimum number of free parameters. The model can be used to predict theevolution in thickness and concentration of volatile-rich H2O ice during infallof icy grains around protostars.