Related papers: Characterizing Earth Analogs in Reflected Light: A…
High-contrast imaging for the detection and characterization of exoplanets relies on the instrument's capability to block out the light of the host star. Some current post-processing methods for calibrating out the residual speckles use…
Future space-based telescopes, such as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), will observe the reflected-light spectra of directly imaged extrasolar planets. Interpretation of such data presents a number of novel challenges,…
Planned missions will spatially resolve temperate terrestrial planets from their host star. Although reflected light from such a planet encodes information about its surface, it has not been shown how to establish surface characteristics of…
Techniques to retrieve the atmospheric properties of exoplanets via direct observation of their reflected light have often been limited in scope due to computational constraints imposed by the forward-model calculations. We have developed a…
Future telescopes will characterize rocky exoplanets in reflected light, revealing their albedo, which depends on surface, cloud, and atmospheric properties. Identifying these features is crucial for assessing habitability. We present…
Direct imaging of exoplanets is usually limited by quasi-static speckles. These uncorrected aberrations in a star's point spread function (PSF) obscure faint companions and limit the sensitivity of high-contrast imaging instruments. Most…
We develop an inversion technique of annual scattered light curves to sketch a two-dimensional albedo map of exoplanets in face-on orbits. As a test-bed for future observations of extrasolar terrestrial planets, we apply this mapping…
Future space-based direct imaging missions will perform low-resolution (R$<$100) optical (0.3-1~$\mu$m) spectroscopy of planets, thus enabling reflected spectroscopy of cool giants. Reflected light spectroscopy is encoded with rich…
Upcoming direct-imaging missions like the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aim to characterize dozens of Earth-like exoplanets by capturing their reflected-light spectra. However, traditional atmospheric retrieval frameworks are too…
The characterization of rocky, Earth-like planets is an important goal for future large ground- and space-based telescopes. In support of developing an efficient observational strategy, we have applied Bayesian statistical inference to…
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
Spectral retrieval techniques are currently our best tool to interpret the observed exoplanet atmospheric data. Said techniques retrieve the optimal atmospheric components and parameters by identifying the best fit to an observed…
In the near-future, atmospheric characterization of Earth-like planets in the habitable zone will become possible via reflectance spectroscopy with future telescopes such as the proposed LUVOIR and HabEx missions. While previous studies…
It has been shown that spectroscopy of transiting extrasolar planets can potentially provide a wealth of information about their atmospheres. Herein, we set up the inverse problem in spectroscopic retrieval. We use non-linear optimal…
Direct imaging spectroscopy with future space-based telescopes will constrain terrestrial planet atmospheric composition and potentially detect biosignature gases. One promising indication of life is abundant atmospheric O2. However,…
Survey strategies for upcoming exoplanet direct imaging missions have considered varying assumptions of prior knowledge. Precursor radial velocity surveys could have detected nearby exo-Earths and provided prior orbit and mass constraints.…
As a test-bed for future investigations of directly imaged terrestrial exoplanets, we present the recovery of the surface components of the Earth from multi-band diurnal light curves obtained with the EPOXI spacecraft. We find that the…
This work assesses the potential capability of the next generation of high-precision Radial Velocity (RV) instruments for Earth-twin exoplanet detection. From the perspective of the importance of data sampling, the Terra Hunting Experiment…
Following the recommendations to NASA and ESA, the search for life on exoplanets will be a priority in the next decades. Two direct imaging space mission concepts are being developed: the Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) and the Large…
We explored two aspects of the problem of characterizing cool extrasolar giant planets in scattered optical light with a space based coronagraph. First, for a number of the known radial velocity (RV) giants we computed traditional forward…