High-precision Atmospheric Characterization of a Y Dwarf with JWST NIRSpec G395H Spectroscopy: Isotopologue, C/O Ratio, Metallicity, and the Abundances of Six Molecular Species

Abstract

The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) marks a pivotal moment for precise atmospheric characterization of Y dwarfs, the coldest brown dwarf spectral type. In this study, we leverage moderate spectral resolution observations ( R ∼ 2700) with the G395H grating of the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) on board JWST to characterize the nearby (9.9 pc) Y dwarf WISEPA J182831.08+265037.8. With the NIRSpec G395H 2.88–5.12 μ m spectrum, we measure the abundances of CO, CO _2 , CH _4 , H _2 S, NH _3 , and H _2 O, which are the major carbon-, nitrogen-, oxygen-, and sulfur-bearing species in the atmosphere. Based on the retrieved volume mixing ratios with the atmospheric retrieval framework CHIMERA, we report that the C/O ratio is 0.45 ± 0.01, close to the solar C/O value of 0.458, and the metallicity is +0.30 ± 0.02 dex. Comparison between the retrieval results and the forward modeling results suggests that the model bias for C/O and metallicity could be as high as 0.03 and 0.97 dex, respectively. We also report a lower limit of the ^12 CO/ ^13 CO ratio of >40, being consistent with the nominal solar value of 90. Our results highlight the potential for JWST to measure the C/O ratios down to percent-level precision and characterize isotopologues of cold planetary atmospheres similar to WISE 1828.

Keywords

• Brown dwarfs
• Y dwarfs
• Exoplanet atmospheres
• Planetary atmospheres