Ground-breaking Exoplanet Science with the ANDES spectrograph at the ELT
Abstract
In the past decade the study of exoplanet atmospheres at high-spectral resolution, via transmission/emission spectroscopy and cross-correlation techniques for atomic/molecular mapping, has become a powerful and consolidated methodology. The current limitation is the signal-to-noise ratio during a planetary transit. This limitation will be overcome by ANDES, an optical and near-infrared high-resolution spectrograph for the ELT. ANDES will be a powerful transformational instrument for exoplanet science. It will enable the study of giant planet atmospheres, allowing not only an exquisite determination of atmospheric composition, but also the study of isotopic compositions, dynamics and weather patterns, mapping the planetary atmospheres and probing atmospheric formation and evolution models. The unprecedented angular resolution of ANDES, will also allow us to explore the initial conditions in which planets form in proto-planetary disks. The main science case of ANDES, however, is the study of small, rocky exoplanet atmospheres, including the potential for biomarker detections, and the ability to reach this science case is driving its instrumental design. Here we discuss our simulations and the observing strategies to achieve this specific science goal. Since ANDES will be operational at the same time as NASA's JWST and ESA's ARIEL missions, it will provide enormous synergies in the characterization of planetary atmospheres at high and low spectral resolution. Moreover, ANDES will be able to probe for the first time the atmospheres of several giant and small planets in reflected light. In particular, we show how ANDES will be able to unlock the reflected light atmospheric signal of a golden sample of nearby non-transiting habitable zone earth-sized planets within a few tenths of nights, a scientific objective that no other currently approved astronomical facility will be able to reach.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2311.17075,
title = {Ground-breaking Exoplanet Science with the ANDES spectrograph at the ELT},
author = {Enric Palle and Katia Biazzo and Emeline Bolmont and Paul Molliere and Katja Poppenhaeger and Jayne Birkby and Matteo Brogi and Gael Chauvin and Andrea Chiavassa and Jens Hoeijmakers and Emmanuel Lellouch and Christophe Lovis and Roberto Maiolino and Lisa Nortmann and Hannu Parviainen and Lorenzo Pino and Martin Turbet and Jesse Wender and Simon Albrecht and Simone Antoniucci and Susana C. Barros and Andre Beaudoin and Bjorn Benneke and Isabelle Boisse and Aldo S. Bonomo and Francesco Borsa and Alexis Brandeker and Wolfgang Brandner and Lars A. Buchhave and Anne-Laure Cheffot and Robin Deborde and Florian Debras and Rene Doyon and Paolo Di Marcantonio and Paolo Giacobbe and Jonay I. Gonzalez Hernandez and Ravit Helled and Laura Kreidberg and Pedro Machado and Jesus Maldonado and Alessandro Marconi and B. L. Canto Martins and Adriano Miceli and Christoph Mordasini and Mamadou N'Diaye and Andrezj Niedzielski and Brunella Nisini and Livia Origlia and Celine Peroux and Alex G. M. Pietrow and Enrico Pinna and Emily Rauscher and Sabine Reffert and Philippe Rousselot and Nicoletta Sanna and Adrien Simonnin and Alejandro Suarez Mascareno and Alessio Zanutta and Mathias Zechmeister},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2311.17075},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
66 pages (103 with references) 20 figures. Submitted to Experimental Astronomy