Physics - Astrophysics, Relativity, and Cosmology Seminar

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Astrophysics, Relativity, and Cosmology Seminar - Michael Zang (University of Chicago) "The carbon-rich atmosphere of a windy pulsar planet"

Event Type
Seminar/Symposium
Sponsor
Department of Physics
Location
Rhondale Tso Seminar Room, Loomis 236
Virtual
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Date
Sep 17, 2025   12:00 pm  
Contact
Deanna Frye
E-Mail
ddebord@illinois.edu

A handful of enigmatic Jupiter-mass objects have been discovered orbiting millisecond pulsars.  Only one such object, PSR J2322-2650b, resembles a hot Jupiter due to its minimum density of 1.8 g/cm^3 and its ~1900 K temperature.  We used JWST to observe its emission spectrum across an entire orbit, finding--in stark contrast to every known exoplanet orbiting a main-sequence star--an atmosphere rich in molecular carbon (C3, C2) with strong westward winds.  Our observations open up a new exoplanetary chemical regime (ultra-high C/O ratio of >100 and C/N ratio of >10,000) and dynamical regime (ultra-fast rotation with external irradiation) to observational study. The extreme carbon enrichment poses a severe challenge to the current understanding of low-mass pulsar companions, which were expected to consist of a wider range of elements due to their origins as stripped stellar cores.

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