2019ApJ...884..108M

Previous observations revealed the existence of CO gas at nearly protoplanetary level in several dust-rich debris disks around young A-type stars. Here we used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) 7 m Array to measure ¹³CO and C¹⁸O emission toward two debris disks, 49 Cet and HD 32297, and detected similarly high CO content (>0.01 M_⊕). These high CO masses imply a highly efficient shielding of CO molecules against stellar and interstellar ultraviolet photons. Adapting a recent secondary gas disk model that considers both shielding by carbon atoms and self-shielding of CO, we can explain the observed CO level in both systems. Based on the derived gas densities we suggest that, in the HD 32297 disk, dust and gas are coupled and the dynamics of small grains is affected by the gaseous component. For 49 Cet, the question of coupling remains undecided. We found that the main stellar and disk properties of 49 Cet and HD 32297 are very similar to those of previously identified debris disks with high CO content. These objects constitute together the first known representatives of shielded debris disks.