JWST/NIRSpec Detects Warm CO Emission in the Terrestrial-Planet Zone of HD 131488
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Lu, Cicero X. Rebollido, Isabel Brittain, Sean Beck, Tracy Chen, Christine H. Worthen, Kadin Najita, Joan Xie, Chen Brennan, Aoife Moro-Martin, Amaya Debes, John France, Kevin Matrà, Luca Perrin, Marshall Roberge, Aki |
| author_facet | Lu, Cicero X. Rebollido, Isabel Brittain, Sean Beck, Tracy Chen, Christine H. Worthen, Kadin Najita, Joan Xie, Chen Brennan, Aoife Moro-Martin, Amaya Debes, John France, Kevin Matrà, Luca Perrin, Marshall Roberge, Aki |
| contents | We have obtained a high-resolution, JWST NIRSpec $2.87$ -- $5.14$ $μ$m spectrum of the debris disk around HD 131488. We discover CO fundamental emission indicating the presence of warm fluorescent gas within $\sim10$ AU of the star. The large discrepancy in CO's vibrational and rotational temperature indicates that CO is out of thermal equilibrium and is excited with UV fluorescence. Our UV fluorescence model gives a best fit of $1150\,$K with an effective temperature of $450$, $332$, and $125\,$K for the warm CO gas kinetic temperature within $0.5$, $1$, and $10\,$AU to the star and a gas vibrational temperature of $8800\,$K. The newly discovered warm CO gas population likely resides between sub-AU scales and $\sim\,10\,$AU, interior to the cold CO reservoir detected beyond $35\,$AU with HST STIS and ALMA. The discovery of warm, fluorescent gas in a debris disk is the first such detection ever made. The detection of warm CO raises the possibility of unseen molecules (H$_2$O, H$_2$, etc) as collisional partners to excite the warm gas. We estimated a lower mass limit for CO of $1.25\times 10^{-7}\text{M}_{\oplus}$, which is $10^{-5}$ of the cold CO mass detected with ALMA and HST. We demonstrate that UV fluorescence emerges as a promising avenue for detecting tenuous gas at $10^{-7}$ Earth-mass level in debris disks with JWST. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_11972 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | JWST/NIRSpec Detects Warm CO Emission in the Terrestrial-Planet Zone of HD 131488 Lu, Cicero X. Rebollido, Isabel Brittain, Sean Beck, Tracy Chen, Christine H. Worthen, Kadin Najita, Joan Xie, Chen Brennan, Aoife Moro-Martin, Amaya Debes, John France, Kevin Matrà, Luca Perrin, Marshall Roberge, Aki Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics We have obtained a high-resolution, JWST NIRSpec $2.87$ -- $5.14$ $μ$m spectrum of the debris disk around HD 131488. We discover CO fundamental emission indicating the presence of warm fluorescent gas within $\sim10$ AU of the star. The large discrepancy in CO's vibrational and rotational temperature indicates that CO is out of thermal equilibrium and is excited with UV fluorescence. Our UV fluorescence model gives a best fit of $1150\,$K with an effective temperature of $450$, $332$, and $125\,$K for the warm CO gas kinetic temperature within $0.5$, $1$, and $10\,$AU to the star and a gas vibrational temperature of $8800\,$K. The newly discovered warm CO gas population likely resides between sub-AU scales and $\sim\,10\,$AU, interior to the cold CO reservoir detected beyond $35\,$AU with HST STIS and ALMA. The discovery of warm, fluorescent gas in a debris disk is the first such detection ever made. The detection of warm CO raises the possibility of unseen molecules (H$_2$O, H$_2$, etc) as collisional partners to excite the warm gas. We estimated a lower mass limit for CO of $1.25\times 10^{-7}\text{M}_{\oplus}$, which is $10^{-5}$ of the cold CO mass detected with ALMA and HST. We demonstrate that UV fluorescence emerges as a promising avenue for detecting tenuous gas at $10^{-7}$ Earth-mass level in debris disks with JWST. |
| title | JWST/NIRSpec Detects Warm CO Emission in the Terrestrial-Planet Zone of HD 131488 |
| topic | Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Solar and Stellar Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.11972 |