Searching for missing interstellar oxygen in the far-infrared

The study of interstellar elemental depletion poses an important problem in interstellar matter that at least a quarter of the total oxygen (∼160 ppm relative to hydrogen) is not accounted for in any known form of oxygen in the translucent or dense interstellar medium (ISM). Detailed analysis of the absorption feature of water ice at 3 μm suggests that one fifth of the missing oxygen may reside in 3-μm-sized water ice grains. However, the 3-μm feature becomes complex and weak for grains larger than 3 μm, and thus, NIR spectroscopy is not the best means to study the presence of large ice grains reliably. Here, we show that sensitive observations of the far-infrared (FIR) features of water ice at 44 and 62 μm enable us to constrain the amount of crystalline water ice grains up to 5 μm or even larger sizes unambiguously. Oxygen is one of the key elements in the ISM chemistry, and [O I] 63 μm is a dominant cooling line in the neutral ISM. Understanding the actual form of the missing oxygen in the ISM is crucial for the study of the ISM and star-formation process. To detect the FIR features of the crystalline water ice over the expected strong continuum, a sensitive FIR spectrograph represented by PRIMA/FIRESS is indispensable. Because the feature is broad, the low spectral resolution of R∼130 is sufficient, but accurate relative calibration better than 1% is required.