The Detectability and Constraints of Biosignature Gases in the Near- and Mid-infrared from Transit Transmission Spectroscopy

  • Tremblay L
  • Line M
  • Stevenson K
  • et al.
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Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope is expected to revolutionize our understanding of Jovian worlds over the coming decade. However, as we push toward characterizing cooler, smaller, terrestrial-like planets, dedicated next-generation facilities will be required to tease out the small spectral signatures indicative of biological activity. Here, we evaluate the feasibility of determining atmospheric properties, from near-to-mid-infrared transmission spectra, of transiting temperate terrestrial M-dwarf companions. Specifically, we utilize atmospheric retrievals to explore the trade space between spectral resolution, wavelength coverage, and signal-to-noise on our ability to both detect molecular species and constrain their abundances. We find that increasing spectral resolution beyond R  = 100 for near-infrared wavelengths, shorter than 5 μ m, proves to reduce the degeneracy between spectral features of different molecules and thus greatly benefits the abundance constraints. However, this benefit is greatly diminished beyond 5 μ m as any overlap between broad features in the mid-infrared does not deconvolve with higher resolutions. Additionally, our findings revealed that the inclusion of features beyond 11 μ m did not meaningfully improve the detection significance or the abundance constraints results. We conclude that an instrument with continuous wavelength coverage from ∼2 to 11 μ m, spectral resolution of R  ≃ 50–300, and a 25 m 2 collecting area, would be capable of detecting H 2 O, CO 2 , CH 4 , O 3 , and N 2 O in the atmosphere of an Earth-analog transiting a M dwarf (mag K = 8.0) within 50 transits, and obtain better than an order-of-magnitude constraint on each of their abundances.

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APA

Tremblay, L., Line, M. R., Stevenson, K., Kataria, T., Zellem, R. T., Fortney, J. J., & Morley, C. (2020). The Detectability and Constraints of Biosignature Gases in the Near- and Mid-infrared from Transit Transmission Spectroscopy. The Astronomical Journal, 159(3), 117. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-3881/ab64dd

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