JWST-TST High Contrast: Medium-resolution Spectroscopy Reveals a Carbon-rich Circumplanetary Disk Around The Young Accreting Exoplanet Delorme 1 AB b

Young accreting planetary-mass objects are thought to draw material from a circumplanetary disk (CPD) composed of gas and dust.

While the gas within the disk is expected to disperse within the first million years, strong accretion has nonetheless been detected in older systems, including the 30–45 Myr-old planetary-mass companion Delorme 1 AB b. We conducted spectroscopic observations with JWST/MIRI to investigate the presence of circumplanetary material around this young, accreting planet, and to characterize the planet’s atmospheric properties and composition.

We perform forward modeling using atmospheric models to characterize the planet’s atmosphere. Beyond 10 microns, the SED becomes dominated by this CPD rather than the planet itself.

We detect strong emission from HCN and C₂H₂, while no O-bearing species are observed in the CPD spectrum, suggesting the gas in the CPD has an elevated C/O. We also identify spatially extended H₂ emission around the planet, tracing warm gas, with indications that it may be at a higher temperature than the non-extended component.

The mid-infrared spectrum of the planetary-mass companion Delorme 1 AB b reveals the first detection of bright C-bearing species in a CPD, together with an outflow traced by H2 extended emission, that could be interpreted as a disk wind. The hot dust continuum emission suggests an inner cavity in the CPD. The presence of warm gas in the CPD provides constraints on the disk’s chemical composition and physical conditions, opening up new avenues for disk studies.

The study of these long-lived “Peter Pan” disks will enhance our understanding of how accretion persists in evolved low-mass systems, shedding light on their formation, longevity, and evolutionary pathways in planetary systems.

Mathilde Mâlin, Kimberly Ward-Duong, Sierra L. Grant, Nicole Arulanantham, Benoît Tabone, Laurent Pueyo, Marshall Perrin, William O. Balmer, Sarah Betti, Christine H. Chen, John H. Debes, Julien H. Girard, Kielan K. W. Hoch, Jens Kammerer, Cicero Lu, Isabel Rebollido, Emily Rickman, Connor Robinson, Kadin Worthen, Roeland P. van der Marel, Nikole K. Lewis, Sara Seager, Jeff A. Valenti, Remi Soummer

Comments: Accepted for publication in A&A
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2510.07253 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2510.07253v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2510.07253
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Submission history
From: Mathilde Mâlin
[v1] Wed, 8 Oct 2025 17:17:55 UTC (27,523 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.07253
Astrobiology, Astrogeology, exoplanet,