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Register a new userExTrA: Exoplanets in Transit and their Atmospheres
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Added by
Jose Manuel Almenara Villa
Publication date
2015
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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The ExTrA facility, located at La Silla observatory, will consist of a near-infrared multi-object spectrograph fed by three 60-cm telescopes. ExTrA will add the spectroscopic resolution to the traditional differential photometry method. This shall enable the fine correction of color-dependent systematics that would otherwise hinder ground-based observations. With both this novel method and an infrared-enabled efficiency, ExTrA aims to find transiting telluric planets orbiting in the habitable zone of bright nearby M dwarfs. It shall have the versatility to do so by running its own independent survey and also by concurrently following-up on the space candidates unveiled by K2 and TESS. The exoplanets detected by ExTrA will be amenable to atmospheric characterisation with VLTs, JWST, and ELTs and could give our first peek into an exo-life laboratory.
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We report a development of a multi-color simultaneous camera for the 188cm telescope at Okayama Astrophysical Observatory in Japan. The instrument, named MuSCAT, has a capability of 3-color simultaneous imaging in optical wavelength where CCDs are sensitive. MuSCAT is equipped with three 1024x1024 pixel CCDs, which can be controlled independently. The three CCDs detect lights in $g_2$ (400--550 nm), $r_2$ (550--700 nm), and $z_{s,2}$ (820--920 nm) bands using Astrodon Photometrics Generation 2 Sloan filters. The field of view of MuSCAT is 6.1x6.1 arcmin$^2$ with the pixel scale of 0.358 arcsec per pixel. The principal purpose of MuSCAT is to perform high precision multi-color transit photometry. For the purpose, MuSCAT has a capability of self autoguiding which enables to fix positions of stellar images within ~1 pix. We demonstrate relative photometric precisions of 0.101%, 0.074%, and 0.076% in $g_2$, $r_2$, and $z_{s,2}$ bands, respectively, for GJ436 (magnitudes in $g$=11.81, $r$=10.08, and $z$=8.66) with 30 s exposures. The achieved precisions meet our objective, and the instrument is ready for operation.
Pandora is a SmallSat mission designed to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, and was selected as part of NASAs Astrophysics Pioneers Program. Transmission spectroscopy of transiting exoplanets provides our best opportunity to identify the makeup of planetary atmospheres in the coming decade. Stellar brightness variations due to star spots, however, can impact these measurements and contaminate the observed spectra. Pandoras goal is to disentangle star and planet signals in transmission spectra to reliably determine exoplanet atmosphere compositions. Pandora will collect long-duration photometric observations with a visible-light channel and simultaneous spectra with a near-IR channel. The broad-wavelength coverage will provide constraints on the spot and faculae covering fractions of low-mass exoplanet host stars and the impact of these active regions on exoplanetary transmission spectra. Pandora will subsequently identify exoplanets with hydrogen- or water-dominated atmospheres, and robustly determine which planets are covered by clouds and hazes. Pandora will observe at least 20 exoplanets with sizes ranging from Earth-size to Jupiter-size and host stars spanning mid-K to late-M spectral types. The project is made possible by leveraging investments in other projects, including an all-aluminum 0.45-meter Cassegrain telescope design, and a NIR sensor chip assembly from the James Webb Space Telescope. The mission will last five years from initial formulation to closeout, with one-year of science operations. Launch is planned for the mid-2020s as a secondary payload in Sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit. By design, Pandora has a diverse team, with over half of the mission leadership roles filled by early career scientists and engineers, demonstrating the high value of SmallSats for developing the next generation of space mission leaders.
Studying exoplanets with their parent stars is crucial to understand their population, formation and history. We review some of the key questions regarding their evolution with particular emphasis on giant gaseous exoplanets orbiting close to solar-type stars. For masses above that of Saturn, transiting exoplanets have large radii indicative of the presence of a massive hydrogen-helium envelope. Theoretical models show that this envelope progressively cools and contracts with a rate of energy loss inversely proportional to the planetary age. The combined measurement of planetary mass, radius and a constraint on the (stellar) age enables a global determination of the amount of heavy elements present in the planet interior. The comparison with stellar metallicity shows a correlation between the two, indicating that accretion played a crucial role in the formation of planets. The dynamical evolution of exoplanets also depends on the properties of the central star. We show that the lack of massive giant planets and brown dwarfs in close orbit around G-dwarfs and their presence around F-dwarfs are probably tied to the different properties of dissipation in the stellar interiors. Both the evolution and the composition of stars and planets are intimately linked.
Before an exoplanet transit, atmospheric refraction bends light into the line of sight of an observer. The refracted light forms a stellar mirage, a distorted secondary image of the host star. I model this phenomenon and the resultant out-of-transit flux increase across a comprehensive exoplanetary parameter space. At visible wavelengths, Rayleigh scattering limits the detectability of stellar mirages in most exoplanetary systems with semi-major axes $lesssim$6 AU. A notable exception is almost any planet orbiting a late M or ultra-cool dwarf star at $gtrsim$0.5 AU, where the maximum relative flux increase is greater than 50 parts-per-million. Based partly on previous work, I propose that the importance of refraction in an exoplanet system is governed by two angles: the orbital distance divided by the stellar radius and the total deflection achieved by a ray in the optically thin portion of the atmosphere. Atmospheric lensing events caused by non-transiting exoplanets, which allow for exoplanet detection and atmospheric characterization, are also investigated. I derive the basic formalism to determine the total signal-to-noise ratio of an atmospheric lensing event, with application to Kepler data. It is unlikely that out-of-transit refracted light signals are clearly present in Kepler data due to Rayleigh scattering and the bias toward short-period exoplanets. However, observations at long wavelengths (e.g., the near-infrared) are significantly more likely to detect stellar mirages. Lastly, I discuss the potential for the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite to detect refracted light and consider novel science cases enabled by refracted light spectra from the James Webb Space Telescope.
Exoplanet science is now in its full expansion, particularly after the CoRoT and Kepler space missions that led us to the discovery of thousands of extra-solar planets. The last decade has taught us that UV observations play a major role in advancing our understanding of planets and of their host stars, but the necessary UV observations can be carried out only by HST, and this is going to be the case for many years to come. It is therefore crucial to build a treasury data archive of UV exoplanet observations formed by a dozen golden systems for which observations will be available from the UV to the infrared. Only in this way we will be able to fully exploit JWST observations for exoplanet science, one of the key JWST science case.
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