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It is known from Earth that ionizing high-energy radiation can lead toion-induced nucleation of cloud condensation nuclei in the atmosphere. Sincethe amount of high-energy radiation can vary greatly based on the radiativeenvironment of a host star, understanding the effect of high-energy radiationon cloud particles is critical to understand exoplanet atmospheres. This studyaims to explore how high-energy radiation affects the aggregation and chargingof mineral cloud particles. We present experiments conducted in an atmospherechamber on mineral SiO$_2$ particles with diameters of 50 nm. The particleswere exposed to gamma radiation in either low-humidity (RH $\approx$ 20%) orhigh-humidity (RH $>$ 50%) environments. The aggregation and charging state ofthe particles were studied with a Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer. We findthat the single SiO$_2$ particles (N1) cluster to form larger aggregates (N2 -N4), and that this aggregation is inhibited by gamma radiation. We find thatgamma radiation shifts the charging of the particles to become more negative,by increasing the charging state of negatively charged particles. Through anindependent T-test we find that this increase is statistically significantwithin a 5% significance level for all aggregates in the high-humidityenvironment, and for all except the N1 particles in the low-humidityenvironment. For the positively charged particles the changes in charging stateare not within the 5% significance level. We suggest that the overall effect ofgamma radiation could favor the formation of a high number of small particlesover a lower number of larger particles.

Aggregation and charging of mineral cloud particles under high-energy irradiation