  Context. The level of porosity of interstellar ices - largely comprised of
amorphous solid water (ASW) - contains clues on the trapping capacity of other
volatile species and determines the surface accessibility that is needed for
solid state reactions to take place. Aims. Our goal is to simulate the growth
of amorphous water ice at low temperature (10 K) and to characterize the
evolution of the porosity (and the specific surface area) as a function of
temperature (from 10 to 120 K). Methods. Kinetic Monte Carlo simulations are
used to mimic the formation and the thermal evolution of pores in amorphous
water ice. We follow the accretion of gas-phase water molecules as well as
their migration on surfaces with different grid sizes, both at the top growing
layer and within the bulk. Results. We show that the porosity characteristics
change substantially in water ice as the temperature increases. The total
surface of the pores decreases strongly while the total volume decreases only
slightly for higher temperatures. This will decrease the overall reaction
efficiency, but in parallel, small pores connect and merge, allowing trapped
molecules to meet and react within the pores network, providing a pathway to
increase the reaction efficiency. We introduce pore coalescence as a new solid
state process that may boost the solid state formation of new molecules in
space and has not been considered so far.

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics;Earth and Planetary Astrophysics