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Register a new userRadial Velocity Prospects Current and Future: A White Paper Report prepared by the Study Analysis Group 8 for the Exoplanet Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG)
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[Abridged] The Study Analysis Group 8 of the NASA Exoplanet Analysis Group was convened to assess the current capabilities and the future potential of the precise radial velocity (PRV) method to advance the NASA goal to search for planetary bodies and Earth-like planets in orbit around other stars.: (U.S. National Space Policy, June 28, 2010). PRVs complement other exoplanet detection methods, for example offering a direct path to obtaining the bulk density and thus the structure and composition of transiting exoplanets. Our analysis builds upon previous community input, including the ExoPlanet Community Report chapter on radial velocities in 2008, the 2010 Decadal Survey of Astronomy, the Penn State Precise Radial Velocities Workshop response to the Decadal Survey in 2010, and the NSF Portfolio Review in 2012. The radial-velocity detection of exoplanets is strongly endorsed by both the Astro 2010 Decadal Survey New Worlds, New Horizons and the NSF Portfolio Review, and the community has recommended robust investment in PRVs. The demands on telescope time for the above mission support, especially for systems of small planets, will exceed the number of nights available using instruments now in operation by a factor of at least several for TESS alone. Pushing down towards true Earth twins will require more photons (i.e. larger telescopes), more stable spectrographs than are currently available, better calibration, and better correction for stellar jitter. We outline four hypothetical situations for PRV work necessary to meet NASA mission exoplanet science objectives.
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The upcoming TESS mission will detect thousands of candidate transiting exoplanets. Those candidates require extensive follow-up observations to distinguish genuine planets from false positives, and to resolve the physical properties of the planets and their host stars. While the TESS mission is funded to conduct those observations for the smallest and most Earth-size candidate systems, the large number of additional candidates will have to be vetted and measured by the rest of the astronomical community. To realize fully the scientific potential of the TESS mission, we must ensure that there are adequate observing resources for the community to examine the TESS transit candidates and find the best candidates for detailed characterization. The primary purpose of this report is to describe the follow-up observational needs for planetary discoveries made by transit surveys - in particular TESS. However, many of the same types of observations are necessary for the other discovery techniques as well, particularly with regards to the characterization of the host stars and the planetary orbits. It is worth acknowledging that while a planet discovery may be a one-time event, the deeper understanding of a planetary system is an ongoing process, requiring observations with better precision over longer time spans.
The NASA Exoplanet Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG) has undertaken an effort to define mission Level 1 requirements for exoplanet direct detection missions at a range of sizes. This report outlines the science goals and requirements for the next exoplanet flagship imaging and spectroscopy mission as determined by the flagship mission Study Analysis Group (SAG) of the NASA Exoplanet Program Analysis Group (ExoPAG). We expect that these goals and requirements will be used to evaluate specific architectures for a future flagship exoplanet imaging and spectroscopy mission, and we expect this effort to serve as a guide and template for similar goals and requirements for smaller missions, an effort that we expect will begin soon. These goals and requirements were discussed, determined, and documented over a 1 year period with contributions from approximately 60 volunteer exoplanet scientists, technologists, and engineers. Numerous teleconferences, emails, and several in-person meetings were conducted to progress on this task, resulting in creating and improving drafts of mission science goals and requirements. That work has been documented in this report as a set of science goals, more detailed objectives, and specific requirements with deliberate flow-down and linkage between each of these sets. The specific requirements have been developed in two categories: Musts are nonnegotiable hard requirements, while Discriminator requirements assign value to performance in areas beyond the floor values set by the Musts. We believe that this framework and content will ensure that this report will be valuable when applied to future mission evaluation activities. We envision that any future exoplanet imaging flagship mission must also be capable of conducting a broad range of other observational astrophysics. We expect that this will be done by the NASA Cosmic Origins Program Analysis Group (COPAG).
This is a joint summary of the reports from the three Astrophysics Program Analysis Groups (PAGs) in response to the Planning for the 2020 Decadal Survey charge given by the Astrophysics Division Director Paul Hertz. This joint executive summary contains points of consensus across all three PAGs. Additional findings specific to the individual PAGs are reported separately in the individual reports. The PAGs concur that all four large mission concepts identified in the white paper as candidates for maturation prior to the 2020 Decadal Survey should be studied in detail. These include the Far-IR Surveyor, the Habitable-Exoplanet Imaging Mission, the UV/Optical/IR Surveyor, and the X-ray Surveyor. This finding is predicated upon assumptions outlined in the white paper and subsequent charge, namely that 1) major development of future large flagship missions under consideration are to follow the implementation phases of JWST and WFIRST; 2) NASA will partner with the European Space Agency on its L3 Gravitational Wave Surveyor; 3) the Inflation Probe be classified as a probe-class mission to be developed according to the 2010 Decadal Survey report. If these key assumptions were to change, this PAG finding would need to be re-evaluated. The PAGs find that there is strong community support for the second phase of this activity - maturation of the four proposed mission concepts via Science and Technology Definition Teams (STDTs). The PAGs find that there is strong consensus that all of the STDTs contain broad and interdisciplinary representation of the science community. Finally, the PAGs find that there is community support for a line of Probe-class missions within the Astrophysics mission portfolio (condensed).
Precise mass measurements of exoplanets discovered by the direct imaging or transit technique are required to determine planet bulk properties and potential habitability. Furthermore, it is generally acknowledged that, for the foreseeable future, the Extreme Precision Radial Velocity (EPRV) measurement technique is the only method potentially capable of detecting and measuring the masses and orbits of habitable-zone Earths orbiting nearby F, G, and K spectral-type stars from the ground. In particular, EPRV measurements with a precision of better than approximately 10 cm/s (with a few cm/s stability over many years) are required. Unfortunately, for nearly a decade, PRV instruments and surveys have been unable to routinely reach RV accuracies of less than roughly 1 m/s. Making EPRV science and technology development a critical component of both NASA and NSF program plans is crucial for reaching the goal of detecting potentially habitable Earthlike planets and supporting potential future exoplanet direct imaging missions such as the Habitable Exoplanet Observatory (HabEx) or the Large Ultraviolet Optical Infrared Surveyor (LUVOIR). In recognition of these facts, the 2018 National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Exoplanet Science Strategy (ESS) report recommended the development of EPRV measurements as a critical step toward the detection and characterization of habitable, Earth-analog planets. In response to the NAS-ESS recommendation, NASA and NSF commissioned the EPRV Working Group to recommend a ground-based program architecture and implementation plan to achieve the goal intended by the NAS. This report documents the activities, findings, and recommendations of the EPRV Working Group.
The WGLA of the AAS (http://www.aas.org/labastro/) promotes collaboration and exchange of knowledge between astronomy and planetary sciences and the laboratory sciences (physics, chemistry, and biology). Laboratory data needs of ongoing and next generation planetary science missions are carefully evaluated and recommended in this white paper submitted by the WGLA to Planetary Decadal Survey.
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