Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology

© 2019 The Author(s). The large number of new planets expected from wide-area transit surveys means that follow-up transmission spectroscopy studies of their atmospheres will be limited by the availability of telescope assets. We argue that telescopes covering a broad range of apertures will be requ...

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Main Authors: J. S. Morgan, E. Kerins, S. Awiphan, I. McDonald, J. J. Hayes, S. Komonjinda, D. Mkritchian, N. Sanguansak
Format: Journal
Published: 2020
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http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/67789
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Institution: Chiang Mai University
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spelling th-cmuir.6653943832-677892020-04-02T15:19:40Z Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology J. S. Morgan E. Kerins S. Awiphan I. McDonald J. J. Hayes S. Komonjinda D. Mkritchian N. Sanguansak Earth and Planetary Sciences Physics and Astronomy © 2019 The Author(s). The large number of new planets expected from wide-area transit surveys means that follow-up transmission spectroscopy studies of their atmospheres will be limited by the availability of telescope assets. We argue that telescopes covering a broad range of apertures will be required, with even 1 m-class instruments providing a potentially important contribution. Survey strategies that employ automated target selection will enable robust population studies. As part of such a strategy, we propose a decision metric to pair the best target to the most suitable telescope, and demonstrate its effectiveness even when only primary transit observables are available. Transmission spectroscopy target selection need not therefore be impeded by the bottle-neck of requiring prior follow-up observations to determine the planet mass. The decision metric can be easily deployed within a distributed heterogeneous network of telescopes equipped to undertake either broad-band photometry or spectroscopy. We show how the metric can be used either to optimize the observing strategy for a given telescope (e.g. choice of filter) or to enable the selection of the best telescope to optimize the overall sample size. Our decision metric can also provide the basis for a selection function to help evaluate the statistical completeness of follow-up transmission spectroscopy data sets. Finally, we validate our metric by comparing its ranked set of targets against lists of planets that have had their atmospheres successfully probed, and against some existing prioritized exoplanet lists. 2020-04-02T15:03:57Z 2020-04-02T15:03:57Z 2019-01-01 Journal 13652966 00358711 2-s2.0-85072036129 10.1093/mnras/stz783 https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85072036129&origin=inward http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/67789
institution Chiang Mai University
building Chiang Mai University Library
country Thailand
collection CMU Intellectual Repository
topic Earth and Planetary Sciences
Physics and Astronomy
spellingShingle Earth and Planetary Sciences
Physics and Astronomy
J. S. Morgan
E. Kerins
S. Awiphan
I. McDonald
J. J. Hayes
S. Komonjinda
D. Mkritchian
N. Sanguansak
Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
description © 2019 The Author(s). The large number of new planets expected from wide-area transit surveys means that follow-up transmission spectroscopy studies of their atmospheres will be limited by the availability of telescope assets. We argue that telescopes covering a broad range of apertures will be required, with even 1 m-class instruments providing a potentially important contribution. Survey strategies that employ automated target selection will enable robust population studies. As part of such a strategy, we propose a decision metric to pair the best target to the most suitable telescope, and demonstrate its effectiveness even when only primary transit observables are available. Transmission spectroscopy target selection need not therefore be impeded by the bottle-neck of requiring prior follow-up observations to determine the planet mass. The decision metric can be easily deployed within a distributed heterogeneous network of telescopes equipped to undertake either broad-band photometry or spectroscopy. We show how the metric can be used either to optimize the observing strategy for a given telescope (e.g. choice of filter) or to enable the selection of the best telescope to optimize the overall sample size. Our decision metric can also provide the basis for a selection function to help evaluate the statistical completeness of follow-up transmission spectroscopy data sets. Finally, we validate our metric by comparing its ranked set of targets against lists of planets that have had their atmospheres successfully probed, and against some existing prioritized exoplanet lists.
format Journal
author J. S. Morgan
E. Kerins
S. Awiphan
I. McDonald
J. J. Hayes
S. Komonjinda
D. Mkritchian
N. Sanguansak
author_facet J. S. Morgan
E. Kerins
S. Awiphan
I. McDonald
J. J. Hayes
S. Komonjinda
D. Mkritchian
N. Sanguansak
author_sort J. S. Morgan
title Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
title_short Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
title_full Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
title_fullStr Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
title_full_unstemmed Exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
title_sort exoplanetary atmosphere target selection in the era of comparative planetology
publishDate 2020
url https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?partnerID=HzOxMe3b&scp=85072036129&origin=inward
http://cmuir.cmu.ac.th/jspui/handle/6653943832/67789
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