The feasibility to detect water ice in debris disks

Icy dust grains are expected to play important roles throughout the entire planet formation process. We investigate whether it is feasible to detect water ice and icy dust mixture particles with various shapes in typical debris disk systems. We find that the prominent 3 and 44 µm water ice features can be potentially detected in future observations of debris disks with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Space Infrared telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics (SPICA). The figure shows where the ice survival line will be located in a β Pic-like debris disk system, depending on the fraction of ice Fice, porosity P, shape, and physical state (amorphous vs. crystalline) of the icy dust aggregates.

Details: https://arxiv.org/abs/1908.07354