Impact of accretion variability on the CO emission of a disk around a very-low-mass star with JWST
Abstract
Studying the structure of very-low-mass stars (M⋆<0.2M⊙) protoplanetary disk is crucial to understand the formation of Earth-like planets. In this paper, we characterize the innermost regions of the disk around a known very-low-mass star, 2MASS J16053215-1933159 (J1605 hereafter), by analyzing new JWST/NIRSpec observations taken in 2024, 2 years after a first observation with JWST/MIRI. We find that between the two epochs (2022 \& 2024), the CO flux is reduced by a factor ∼ 3, the flux of the HI 10-6 line seen by both NIRSpec and MIRI is reduced by a factor ∼13, and the total continuum density flux is reduced by ∼ 15 %. The accretion rate derived from individual HI lines is consistent with a decrease of a factor ∼13 in 2 years. After correcting the spectrum from the CO absorption present in J1605 stellar photosphere, we find that the decrease of the disk's CO emission is consistent with a CO gas of same column density and temperature at each epoch, but originating from a smaller emitting area when the accretion rate is low. While warm hydrocarbons (≃ 500K) are detected with MIRI-MRS with extremely high column densities of C2H2, no hydrocarbons features are seen with NIRSpec. We propose that non-LTE effects quench the near-IR emission of hydrocarbons in the warm reservoir. The variation of the accretion luminosity of J1605 correlates with the variation of its fundamental CO luminosity in a similar way as in T-Tauri stars, supporting the idea that very-low-mass stars could be seen as scaled-down versions of T-Tauri stars. The detection of the emission of the fundamental band of CO in disks around cold objects is challenging because of the presence of CO absorption in their photosphere. Future observations (e.g., with ELT/METIS) looking for such emission will require robust ways to constrain the photosphere emission.
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BibTeX
@misc{bergezcasalou2026impact,
title = {{Impact of accretion variability on the CO emission of a disk around a very-low-mass star with JWST}},
author = {C. Bergez-Casalou and B. Tabone and Y. Aoyama and G. Herczeg and A. Caratti o Garatti and E. Habart and E. F. van Dishoeck and I. Chemerynska and T. Henning and S. L. Grant and M. Guedel and A. M. Arabhavi and J. Kanwar and G. Olofsson and G. Perotti and L. Tychoniec and L. B. F. M. Waters},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.24329},
eprint = {2609.24329},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24329},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Impact of accretion variability on the CO emission of a disk around a very-low-mass star with JWST
AU - C. Bergez-Casalou
AU - B. Tabone
AU - Y. Aoyama
AU - G. Herczeg
AU - A. Caratti o Garatti
AU - E. Habart
AU - E. F. van Dishoeck
AU - I. Chemerynska
AU - T. Henning
AU - S. L. Grant
AU - M. Guedel
AU - A. M. Arabhavi
AU - J. Kanwar
AU - G. Olofsson
AU - G. Perotti
AU - L. Tychoniec
AU - L. B. F. M. Waters
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.24329
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.24329
AB - Studying the structure of very-low-mass stars (M_⋆<0.2M_⊙) protoplanetary disk is crucial to understand the formation of Earth-like planets. In this paper, we characterize the innermost regions of the disk around a known very-low-mass star, 2MASS J16053215-1933159 (J1605 hereafter), by analyzing new JWST/NIRSpec observations taken in 2024, 2 years after a first observation with JWST/MIRI. We find that between the two epochs (2022 \& 2024), the CO flux is reduced by a factor ∼ 3, the flux of the HI 10-6 line seen by both NIRSpec and MIRI is reduced by a factor ∼13, and the total continuum density flux is reduced by ∼ 15 %. The accretion rate derived from individual HI lines is consistent with a decrease of a factor ∼13 in 2 years. After correcting the spectrum from the CO absorption present in J1605 stellar photosphere, we find that the decrease of the disk's CO emission is consistent with a CO gas of same column density and temperature at each epoch, but originating from a smaller emitting area when the accretion rate is low. While warm hydrocarbons (≃ 500K) are detected with MIRI-MRS with extremely high column densities of C_2H_2, no hydrocarbons features are seen with NIRSpec. We propose that non-LTE effects quench the near-IR emission of hydrocarbons in the warm reservoir. The variation of the accretion luminosity of J1605 correlates with the variation of its fundamental CO luminosity in a similar way as in T-Tauri stars, supporting the idea that very-low-mass stars could be seen as scaled-down versions of T-Tauri stars. The detection of the emission of the fundamental band of CO in disks around cold objects is challenging because of the presence of CO absorption in their photosphere. Future observations (e.g., with ELT/METIS) looking for such emission will require robust ways to constrain the photosphere emission.
ER -