Detection of Carbon Monoxide in the Atmosphere of WASP-39b Applying Standard Cross-correlation Techniques to JWST NIRSpec G395H Data
Journal article, 2023
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 μm, 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 6.6σ when using a template with only 12C16O lines. The CCF significance of the CO signal increases to 7.5σ when including in the template lines from additional CO isotopologues, with the largest contribution being from 13C16O. 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.
Author
E. Esparza-Borges
University of La Laguna
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Mercedes López-Morales
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Jéa I. Adams Redai
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Enric Palle
University of La Laguna
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
J. Kirk
Imperial College London
Núria Casasayas-Barris
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Natasha E. Batalha
NASA Ames Research Center
Benjamin V. Rackham
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Jacob L. Bean
University of Chicago
Sarah Casewell
University Of Leicester
L. Decin
KU Leuven
L. A. Dos Santos
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
Antonio García Muñoz
University Paris-Saclay
J. Harrington
University of Central Florida
Kevin Heng
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)
Renyu Hu
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
L. Mancini
University of Rome Tor Vergata
Istituto nazionale di astrofisica (INAF)
Max Planck Society
K. Molaverdikhani
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU)
Giuseppe Morello
Chalmers, Space, Earth and Environment, Astronomy and Plasmaphysics
Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Nikolay K. Nikolov
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)
M. C. Nixon
University of Maryland
S. Redfield
Wesleyan University
Kevin B. Stevenson
The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
Hannah R. Wakeford
University of Bristol
Munazza K. Alam
Carnegie Observatories
B. Benneke
Université de Montréal
Jasmina Blecic
New York University Abu Dhabi
N. Crouzet
Leiden University
Tansu Daylan
Princeton University
Julie Inglis
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
L. Kreidberg
Max Planck Society
Dominique J.M. Petit dit de la Roche
University of Geneva
Jake D. Turner
Cornell University
Astrophysical Journal Letters
2041-8205 (ISSN) 2041-8213 (eISSN)
Vol. 955 1 L19Subject Categories
Astronomy, Astrophysics and Cosmology
Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering
DOI
10.3847/2041-8213/acf27b