A roadmap for the atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets with JWST
Abstract
Ultra-cool dwarf stars are abundant, long-lived, and uniquely suited to enable the atmospheric study of transiting terrestrial companions with JWST. Amongst them, the most prominent is the M8.5V star TRAPPIST-1 and its seven planets. While JWST Cycle 1 observations have started to yield preliminary insights into the planets, they have also revealed that their atmospheric exploration requires a better understanding of their host star. Here, we propose a roadmap to characterize the TRAPPIST-1 system -- and others like it -- in an efficient and robust manner. We notably recommend that -- although more challenging to schedule -- multi-transit windows be prioritized to mitigate the effects of stellar activity and gather up to twice more transits per JWST hour spent. We conclude that, for such systems, planets cannot be studied in isolation by small programs, but rather need large-scale, jointly space- and ground-based initiatives to fully exploit the capabilities of JWST for the exploration of terrestrial planets.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2310.15895,
title = {A roadmap for the atmospheric characterization of terrestrial exoplanets with JWST},
author = {TRAPPIST-1 JWST Community Initiative and : and Julien de Wit and René Doyon and Benjamin V. Rackham and Olivia Lim and Elsa Ducrot and Laura Kreidberg and Björn Benneke and Ignasi Ribas and David Berardo and Prajwal Niraula and Aishwarya Iyer and Alexander Shapiro and Nadiia Kostogryz and Veronika Witzke and Michaël Gillon and Eric Agol and Victoria Meadows and Adam J. Burgasser and James E. Owen and Jonathan J. Fortney and Franck Selsis and Aaron Bello-Arufe and Zoë de Beurs and Emeline Bolmont and Nicolas Cowan and Chuanfei Dong and Jeremy J. Drake and Lionel Garcia and Thomas Greene and Thomas Haworth and Renyu Hu and Stephen R. Kane and Pierre Kervella and Daniel Koll and Joshua Krissansen-Totton and Pierre-Olivier Lagage and Tim Lichtenberg and Jacob Lustig-Yaeger and Manasvi Lingam and Martin Turbet and Sara Seager and Khalid Barkaoui and Taylor J. Bell and Artem Burdanov and Charles Cadieux and Benjamin Charnay and Ryan Cloutier and Neil J. Cook and Alexandre C. M. Correia and Lisa Dang and Tansu Daylan and Laetitia Delrez and Billy Edwards and Thomas J. Fauchez and Laura Flagg and Federico Fraschetti and Jacob Haqq-Misra and Ziyu Huang and Nicolas Iro and Ray Jayawardhana and Emmanuel Jehin and Meng Jin and Edwin Kite and Daniel Kitzmann and Quentin Kral and David Lafrenière and Anne-Sophie Libert and Beibei Liu and Subhanjoy Mohanty and Brett M. Morris and Catriona A. Murray and Caroline Piaulet and Francisco J. Pozuelos and Michael Radica and Sukrit Ranjan and Alexander Rathcke and Pierre-Alexis Roy and Edward W. Schwieterman and Jake D. Turner and Amaury Triaud and Michael J. Way},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.15895},
year = {2024}
}