  JWST has shown that CO2 and CO are common on the surfaces of objects in the
Kuiper belt and have apparent surface coverages even higher than that of water
ice, though water ice is expected to be significantly more abundant in the bulk
composition. Using full Mie scattering theory, we show that the high abundance
and the unusual spectral behaviour around the 4.26 micron v1 band of CO2 can be
explained by a surface covered in a few micron thick layer of ~ 1-2 micron CO2
particles. CO is unstable at the temperatures in the Kuiper belt, so the CO
must be trapped in some more stable species. While hydrate clathrates or
amorphous water ice are often invoked as a trapping mechanism for outer solar
system ices, the expected spectral shift of the absorption line for a CO
hydrate clathrates or trapping in amorphous ice is not seen, nor does the H2O
abundance appear to be high enough to explain the depth of the CO absorption
line. Instead, we suggest that the CO is created via irradiation of CO2 and
trapped in the CO2 grains during this process. The presence of a thin surface
layer of CO2 with embedded CO suggests volatile differentiation driving CO2
from the interior as a major process driving the surface appearance of these
mid-sized Kuiper belt objects, but the mechanisms that control the small grain
size and depth of the surface layer remain unclear.
