Complex refractive index of CO ice

These parameters are of great importance to model the dust continuum radiative transfer in dense and cold regions, where thick ice mantles are present, and are necessary for the interpretation of future observations planned in the far-IR region. Coherent THz radiation allows direct measurement of the complex dielectric function (refractive index) of astrophysically relevant ice species in the THz range.

The time-domain waveforms and the frequency-domain spectra of reference samples of CO ice, deposited at a temperature of 28.5K and annealed to 33K at different thicknesses, have been recorded. A new algorithm is developed to reconstruct the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index from the time-domain THz data. The complex refractive index in the wavelength range of 1mm-150um (0.3-2.0THz) has been determined for the studied ice samples, and compared with available data found in the literature.