The Isotopic and Elemental Abundances of Planet-Host Star TRAPPIST-1

arXiv:2608.26097 · astro-ph.SR, astro-ph.EP · Submitted 2026-08-26 · Read on arXiv

astro-ph.SR, astro-ph.EP

Submitted: 2026-08-26

Updated: 2026-10-05

Comments: 24 pages, 13 figures, published in The Astrophysical Journal (ApJ)

Journal ref: 2026 ApJ 1010 22

DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ae9bbc

Code: https://github.com/jruffio/breads

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The gist: Elemental and isotopic abundances are key tracers of planet formation, stellar evolution, and Galactic chemical evolution.

Terminology

Abstract

Elemental and isotopic abundances are key tracers of planet formation, stellar evolution, and Galactic chemical evolution. Very low-mass stars are particularly interesting in this regard, because unlike more massive or evolved stars their photospheric abundances retain the star's natal composition. Cool dwarf spectra have historically been challenging to use for measurements of chemical abundances because of the blending of molecular and atomic features. However, recent advances in molecular line lists, atmospheric models, fitting techniques and IR spectrographs have enabled the successful measurement of elemental and isotopic ratios in a few dozen very low-mass stars. Here, we present near-infrared high-resolution spectroscopy of TRAPPIST-1 covering the fundamental and overtone bands of carbon monoxide and its prominent isotopologues. From the joint analysis of the K-band (CFHT/SPIRou) and M-band (Keck/NIRSPEC) spectra, we derive the first stellar C/O ratio and the first carbon and oxygen isotope ratios for this star. We obtain a metallicity of [M/H] = 0.00 plus or minus 0.06, a C/O ratio of 0.60 plus or minus 0.02, 12 C/13 C = 154+17-16, and 16 O/18 O = 490+78-64. TRAPPIST-1 has generally solar-like elemental abundances, with a 12 C/13 C ratio that is higher than the solar value and may be modestly elevated relative to some nearby cool dwarfs at similar metallicity. While C/O is most tightly constrained by the K-band, the isotopic detections are driven by the M-band data.

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