1999ApJ...522..357G

Spectra of interstellar CO₂ ice absorption features at a resolving power of λ/Δλ~1500-2000 are presented for 14 lines of sight. The observations were made with the Short-Wavelength Spectrometer (SWS) of the Infrared Space Observatory (ISO). Spectral coverage includes the primary stretching mode of CO₂ near 4.27 µm in all sources; the bending mode near 15.2 µm is also detected in 12 of them. The selected sources include massive protostars (Elias 29 [in ρ Oph], GL 490, GL 2136, GL 2591, GL 4176, NGC 7538 IRS 1, NGC 7538 IRS 9, S140, W3 IRS 5, and W33 A), sources associated with the Galactic Center (Sgr A^*, GCS 3 I, and GCS 4), and a background star behind a quiescent dark cloud in Taurus (Elias 16); they thus probe a diverse range of environments. Column densities of interstellar CO₂ ice relative to H₂O ice fall in the range 10%-23%: this ratio displays remarkably little variation for such a physically diverse sample. Comparison of the observed profiles with laboratory data for CO₂-bearing ice mixtures indicates that CO₂ generally exists in at least two phases, one polar (H₂O dominant) and one nonpolar (CO₂ dominant). The observed CO₂ profiles may also be reproduced when the nonpolar components are replaced with thermally annealed ices. Formation and evolutionary scenarios for CO₂ and implications for grain mantle chemistry are discussed. Our results support the conclusion that thermal annealing, rather than energetic processing due to UV photons or cosmic rays, dominates the evolution of CO₂-bearing ices.