The ESO SupJup Survey

I. Chemical and isotopic characterisation of the late L-dwarf DENIS J0255-4700 with CRIRES^+★

¹ Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, PO Box 9513, 2300 RA, Leiden, The Netherlands
e-mail: regt@strw.leidenuniv.nl
² Department of Physics, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
³ Centre for Exoplanets and Habitability, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
⁴ Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
⁵ School of Natural Sciences, Center for Astronomy, University of Galway, Galway H91 CF50, Ireland
⁶ IPAC, Mail Code 100-22, Caltech, 1200 E. California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA
⁷ Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany
⁸ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA-CSIC), Glorieta de la Astronomía s/n, 18008 Granada, Spain

Received: 6 November 2023
Accepted: 30 May 2024

Abstract

Context. It has been proposed that the distinct formation and evolutionary pathways of exoplanets and brown dwarfs may affect the chemical and isotopic content of their atmospheres. Recent work has indeed shown differences in the ¹²C/¹³C isotope ratio, which have provisionally been attributed to the top-down formation of brown dwarfs and the core accretion pathway of super-Jupiters.

Aims. The ESO SupJup Survey is aimed at disentangling the formation pathways of isolated brown dwarfs and planetary-mass companions using chemical and isotopic tracers. The survey utilises high-resolution spectroscopy with the recently upgraded CRyogenic high-resolution InfraRed Echelle Spectrograph (CRIRES⁺) at the Very Large Telescope, covering a total of 49 targets. Here, we present the first results of this survey: an atmospheric characterisation of DENIS J0255-4700, an isolated brown dwarf near the L-T transition.

Methods. We analysed its observed CRIRES⁺ K-band spectrum using an atmospheric retrieval framework in which the radiative transfer code petitRADTRANS was coupled with the PyMultiNest sampling algorithm. Gaussian processes were employed to model inter-pixel correlations. In addition, we adopted an updated parameterisation of the pressure-temperature profile.

Results. Abundances of CO, H₂O, CH₄, and NH₃ were retrieved for this fast-rotating L-dwarf. The ExoMol H₂O line list provides a significantly better fit than that of HITEMP. A free-chemistry retrieval is strongly favoured over equilibrium chemistry, caused by an under-abundance of CH₄. The free-chemistry retrieval constrains a super-solar C/O-ratio of ~0.68 and a solar metallicity. We find tentative evidence (~3σ) for the presence of ¹³CO, with a constraint on the isotopologue ratio of ¹²CO/¹³CO = 184₋₄₀⁺⁶¹ and a lower limit of ≳97, which suggests a depletion of ¹³C compared to the local interstellar medium (¹²C/¹³C ~ 68).

Conclusions. High-resolution, high signal-to-noise K-band spectra provide an excellent means of constraining the chemistry and isotopic content of sub-stellar objects, which is the main objective of the ESO SupJup Survey.