The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2023)
Detection of Carbon Monoxide in the Atmosphere of WASP-39b Applying Standard Cross-correlation Techniques to JWST NIRSpec G395H Data
- Emma Esparza-Borges,
- Mercedes López-Morales,
- Jéa I. Adams Redai,
- Enric Pallé,
- James Kirk,
- Núria Casasayas-Barris,
- Natasha E. Batalha,
- Benjamin V. Rackham,
- Jacob L. Bean,
- S. L. Casewell,
- Leen Decin,
- Leonardo A. Dos Santos,
- Antonio García Muñoz,
- Joseph Harrington,
- Kevin Heng,
- Renyu Hu,
- Luigi Mancini,
- Karan Molaverdikhani,
- Giuseppe Morello,
- Nikolay K. Nikolov,
- Matthew C. Nixon,
- Seth Redfield,
- Kevin B. Stevenson,
- Hannah R. Wakeford,
- Munazza K. Alam,
- Björn Benneke,
- Jasmina Blecic,
- Nicolas Crouzet,
- Tansu Daylan,
- Julie Inglis,
- Laura Kreidberg,
- Dominique J. M. Petit dit de la Roche,
- Jake D. Turner
Affiliations
- Emma Esparza-Borges
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna , E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- Mercedes López-Morales
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Jéa I. Adams Redai
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Enric Pallé
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna , E-38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- James Kirk
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, Imperial College London , Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2AZ, UK
- Núria Casasayas-Barris
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
- Natasha E. Batalha
- ORCiD
- NASA Ames Research Center , Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
- Benjamin V. Rackham
- ORCiD
- Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA; Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research , Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
- Jacob L. Bean
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Chicago , Chicago, IL 60637, USA
- S. L. Casewell
- ORCiD
- Centre for Exoplanet Research, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester , University Road, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK
- Leen Decin
- ORCiD
- Institute of Astronomy , KU Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200D, B-3001 Heverlee, Belgium
- Leonardo A. Dos Santos
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Antonio García Muñoz
- ORCiD
- Université Paris-Saclay , Université Paris Cité, CEA, CNRS, AIM, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France
- Joseph Harrington
- ORCiD
- Planetary Sciences Group, Department of Physics and Florida Space Institute, University of Central Florida , Orlando, FL, USA
- Kevin Heng
- ORCiD
- Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich , Faculty of Physics, Germany
- Renyu Hu
- ORCiD
- Jet Propulsion Laboratory , California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA; Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences , California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Luigi Mancini
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, University of Rome “Tor Vergata”, Rome, Italy; Max Planck Institute for Astronomy , Heidelberg, Germany; INAF—Turin Astrophysical Observatory , Pino Torinese, Italy
- Karan Molaverdikhani
- ORCiD
- Universitäts-Sternwarte , Fakultät für Physik, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Scheinerstr. 1, D-81679 München, Germany; Exzellenzcluster ‘Origins’ , Boltzmannstr. 2, D-85748 Garching, Germany
- Giuseppe Morello
- ORCiD
- Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias , E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain; Department of Space, Earth and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology , SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden
- Nikolay K. Nikolov
- ORCiD
- Space Telescope Science Institute , 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
- Matthew C. Nixon
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland , College Park, MD, USA
- Seth Redfield
- ORCiD
- Astronomy Department and Van Vleck Observatory, Wesleyan University , Middletown, CT 06459, USA
- Kevin B. Stevenson
- ORCiD
- Johns Hopkins APL , Laurel, MD, USA
- Hannah R. Wakeford
- ORCiD
- University of Bristol , HH Wills Physics Laboratory, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, UK
- Munazza K. Alam
- ORCiD
- Carnegie Earth & Planets Laboratory , 5241 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015, USA
- Björn Benneke
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Institute for Research on Exoplanets, Universite de Montréal , Montreal, QC, Canada
- Jasmina Blecic
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics, New York University Abu Dhabi , Abu Dhabi, UAE; Center for Astro, Particle and Planetary Physics (CAP3), New York University Abu Dhabi , Abu Dhabi, UAE
- Nicolas Crouzet
- ORCiD
- Leiden Observatory, Leiden University , P.O. Box 9513, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
- Tansu Daylan
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , 4 Ivy Lane, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA
- Julie Inglis
- ORCiD
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences , California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
- Laura Kreidberg
- ORCiD
- Max Planck Institute for Astronomy , Heidelberg, Germany
- Dominique J. M. Petit dit de la Roche
- ORCiD
- Département d’Astronomie, Université de Genève , Sauverny, Switzerland
- Jake D. Turner
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy and Carl Sagan Institute, Cornell University , Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acf27b
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 955,
no. 1
p. L19
Abstract
Carbon monoxide was recently reported in the atmosphere of the hot Jupiter WASP-39b using the NIRSpec PRISM transit observation of this planet, collected as part of the JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Program. This detection, however, could not be confidently confirmed in the initial analysis of the higher-resolution observations with NIRSpec G395H disperser. Here we confirm the detection of CO in the atmosphere of WASP-39b using the NIRSpec G395H data and cross-correlation techniques. We do this by searching for the CO signal in the unbinned transmission spectrum of the planet between 4.6 and 5.0 μ m, where the contribution of CO is expected to be higher than that of other anticipated molecules in the planet’s atmosphere. Our search results in a detection of CO with a cross-correlation function (CCF) significance of 6.6 σ when using a template with only ^12 C ^16 O lines. The CCF significance of the CO signal increases to 7.5 σ when including in the template lines from additional CO isotopologues, with the largest contribution being from ^13 C ^16 O. Our results highlight how cross-correlation techniques can be a powerful tool for unveiling the chemical composition of exoplanetary atmospheres from medium-resolution transmission spectra, including the detection of isotopologues.
Keywords
