A Precise Carbon and Oxygen Abundance Determination in a Hot Jupiter Atmosphere

A Precise Carbon and Oxygen Abundance Determination in a Hot Jupiter Atmosphere | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Physical Sciences - Article A Precise Carbon and Oxygen Abundance Determination in a Hot Jupiter Atmosphere Michael Line, Matteo Brogi, Jacob Bean, Siddharth Gandhi, Joseph Zalesky, and 11 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-593104/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 27 Oct, 2021 Read the published version in Nature → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract The origins of gas giant planets orbiting close to their host stars (``hot Jupiters'') remain a mystery despite more than a quarter-century of study (Fortney et al. 2021). The atmospheric compositions of these planets are highly sought after to provide insight to their formation location in protoplanetary disks, how they migrated to be so close to their host stars, and the relative role of solid versus gas accretion during their assembly (Madhusudhan 2019). However, simultaneous, bounded constraints on both carbon and oxygen abundances, which are key for understanding giant planet formation (Oeberg et al. 2011, Mordasini et al. 2016, Madhusudhan et al. 2017,Cridland et al. 2016), have been elusive (Kreidberg et al. 2014,Wakeford et al. 2018,Pelletier et al. 2021). Here, we report precise abundance measurements of both water and carbon monoxide in a hot Jupiter atmosphere via ground-based, high resolution spectroscopy. From these constraints on the primary carbon- and oxygen-bearing molecules, paired with upper limits on other minor volatile elemental carriers, we are able to derive the atmospheric elemental metal enrichment (metallicity) and the carbon-to-oxygen ratio (C/O). The inferred atmospheric metallicity is slightly sub-stellar (-0.48$+0.15/-0.13) and the C/O is consistent with stellar (0.59 ±0.08). The former is suggestive of a metal-depleted atmosphere relative to expectations based on extrapolation from the solar system, indicative of a greater partitioning of metals within the core vs the atmosphere. The C/O constraint rules out gas-dominated accretion followed by disk free migration. Taken together in the context of past inferences, these results point to a diversity of planetary atmospheric compositions in addition to the observed diversity of planetary system architectures. Planetary Science Atmospheric Sciences Gas Giant Planets Atmospheric Compositions Giant Planet Formation Ground-based Spectroscopy Metallicity Full Text Additional Declarations There is NO Competing Interest. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 27 Oct, 2021 Read the published version in Nature → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-593104","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Physical Sciences - Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":31578120,"identity":"dceb01b1-eeb2-4926-addf-f7be71303b85","order_by":0,"name":"Michael 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The atmospheric compositions of these planets are highly sought after to provide insight to their formation location in protoplanetary disks, how they migrated to be so close to their host stars, and the relative role of solid versus gas accretion during their assembly (Madhusudhan 2019). However, simultaneous, bounded constraints on both carbon and oxygen abundances, which are key for understanding giant planet formation (Oeberg et al. 2011, Mordasini et al. 2016, Madhusudhan et al. 2017,Cridland et al. 2016), have been elusive (Kreidberg et al. 2014,Wakeford et al. 2018,Pelletier et al. 2021). Here, we report precise abundance measurements of both water and carbon monoxide in a hot Jupiter atmosphere via ground-based, high resolution spectroscopy. 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Taken together in the context of past inferences, these results point to a diversity of planetary atmospheric compositions in addition to the observed diversity of planetary system architectures.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"A Precise Carbon and Oxygen Abundance Determination in a Hot Jupiter Atmosphere","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2021-06-09 16:30:23","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-593104/v1","editorialEvents":[],"status":"published","journal":{"display":false,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"nature","isNatureJournal":true,"hasQc":false,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"nature","sideBox":"Learn more about [Nature](http://www.nature.com/nature/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"Nature","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"ejp","reportingPortfolio":"Nature","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"761b4d5b-2e26-427a-a9b7-c0d05663105a","owner":[],"postedDate":"June 9th, 2021","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"published-in-journal","subjectAreas":[{"id":4892781,"name":"Planetary Science"},{"id":4892782,"name":"Atmospheric Sciences"}],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2021-11-22T15:30:10+00:00","versionOfRecord":{"articleIdentity":"rs-593104","link":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03912-6","journal":{"identity":"nature","isVorOnly":false,"title":"Nature"},"publishedOn":"2021-10-27 04:00:00","publishedOnDateReadable":"October 27th, 2021"},"versionCreatedAt":"2021-06-09 16:30:23","video":"","vorDoi":"10.1038/s41586-021-03912-6","vorDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03912-6","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-593104","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-593104","identity":"rs-593104","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"_2-kVJe1T_tPrBINL-cwx","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}