# # Program information file # PROGRAM_ID 2024B059 PROGRAM_TITLE Investigating the origin of the gas in the 49 Ceti debris disk PROGRAM_INV1 Kadin Worthen PROGRAM_INV2 Christine Chen PROGRAM_INV3 Sean Brittain PROGRAM_INV4 Joan Najita PROGRAM_INV5 Cicero Lu PROGRAM_SCICAT extra-solar planets PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_BEG Debris disks are planetary systems that that were thought to be dust dominated and gas poor, where the dust is produced by collisions between minor bodies in the system. In the past 20 years, ~20 debris disks have been revealed to contain molecular CO. The origin of the gas in debris disks, whether it is left over primordial gas from the protoplanetary disk or released from the collisions of icy bodies in the system is an open question. In Cycle 1, astronomers used JWST NIRSpec [R=100] to discover fluorescent CO emission towards the 49 Ceti debris disk as well as potential water and CO2 ice features in the the reflectance spectrum of its dust. Here we propose high spectral resolution iSHELL observations in M-band of the 49 Ceti debris disk to separate and resolve the individual CO lines. We will be able to constrain the gas temperature and the density of the collisional partner [presumably H2] in the disk to determine if the gas is remnant from the protoplanetary disk [high H2 density] or produced from collision between minor bodies [low H2 density]. We also propose SPEX observations to constrain the stellar photosphere in order to accurately characterize the ice features discovered by JWST, since the reflectance spectrum is obtained by dividing the dust spectrum by a model of the stellar spectrum. PROGRAM_ABSTRACT_END