系外行星大干涉仪(LIFE): I. 大型中红外空间干涉任务系外行星探测产额估计的改进
摘要
系外行星科学的长期目标之一是对数十颗小型系外行星进行大气表征,以理解其多样性并搜寻宜居世界及潜在生物标志。实现该目标需要足够规模的空间任务。我们试图量化一个基于空间的中红外零化干涉仪(测量系外行星热辐射)的系外行星探测性能。为此,我们开发了一个考虑所有主要天体物理噪声源的仪器模拟器,并将其与 20 pc 内主序星周围合成系外行星种群的蒙特卡洛模拟相耦合。这使我们能量化我们的任务概念在某一时间段内可探测的系外行星数量(及类型)。讨论了在恒星目标间分配观测时间的两种不同方案,并考虑了不同的孔径尺寸与波长范围。在 2.5 年初搜阶段,一个由四个 2 m 孔径组成、总仪器透过率 5%、覆盖 4 至 18.5 m 波长范围的干涉仪可探测多达约 550 颗半径在 0.5 至 6 R 之间、综合 SNR7 的系外行星。被探测系外行星中至少约 160 颗半径 1.5 R。依观测方案不同,探测目标中包含约 25–45 颗位于宿主星经验宜居区(eHZ)内运行的岩质系外行星(半径 0.5 至 1.5 的天体)。孔径尺寸为 3.5 m 时,探测总数可增至最多约 770 颗,包括约 60–80 颗岩质 eHZ 行星。孔径 1 m 时,最大探测产额为约 315 颗系外行星,包括 20 颗岩质 eHZ 行星。就预测探测产额而言,此类任务可与大型单孔径反射光任务竞争。(节略)
引用
@article{arxiv.2101.07500,
title = {Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE): I. Improved exoplanet detection yield estimates for a large mid-infrared space-interferometer mission},
author = {S. P. Quanz and M. Ottiger and E. Fontanet and J. Kammerer and F. Menti and F. Dannert and A. Gheorghe and O. Absil and V. S. Airapetian and E. Alei and R. Allart and D. Angerhausen and S. Blumenthal and L. A. Buchhave and J. Cabrera and Ó. Carrión-González and G. Chauvin and W. C. Danchi and C. Dandumont and D. Defrère and C. Dorn and D. Ehrenreich and S. Ertel and M. Fridlund and A. García Muñoz and C. Gascón and J. H. Girard and A. Glauser and J. L. Grenfell and G. Guidi and J. Hagelberg and R. Helled and M. J. Ireland and M. Janson and R. K. Kopparapu and J. Korth and T. Kozakis and S. Kraus and A. Léger and L. Leedjärv and T. Lichtenberg and J. Lillo-Box and H. Linz and R. Liseau and J. Loicq and V. Mahendra and F. Malbet and J. Mathew and B. Mennesson and M. R. Meyer and L. Mishra and K. Molaverdikhani and L. Noack and A. V. Oza and E. Pallé and H. Parviainen and A. Quirrenbach and H. Rauer and I. Ribas and M. Rice and A. Romagnolo and S. Rugheimer and E. W. Schwieterman and E. Serabyn and S. Sharma and K. G. Stassun and J. Szulágyi and H. S. Wang and F. Wunderlich and M. C. Wyatt and the LIFE collaboration},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.07500},
year = {2022}
}
备注
Accepted for publication by A&A - some typos corrected and affiliations updated; 14 pages main text (incl. 14 figures); first paper in the LIFE paper series; papers II (arXiv:2203.00471) and III (arXiv:2112.02054) are also available