Research Note

The low temperature crystallization effect reevaluated

Raymond and Beverly Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, Leiden Observatory, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands

Corresponding author: schutte@strw.Leidenuniv.nl

Received: 7 February 2002
Accepted: 4 March 2002

Abstract

We reevaluate the Low Temperature Crystallization (LTC) effect reported by Moore et al. (1994)) for ices condensed on a layer of amorphous silicate smoke on an aluminum substrate at <20 K. We consider the possibility that the observations put forward by Moore et al. in support of the LTC phenomenon could result from poor thermal conductivity in the fluffy smoke layer causing the temperature of the smoke particles to be well above that of the aluminum substrate. We conclude that there is currently no persuasive evidence for LTC in the Moore et al. experiments.