2021/05/28 by Margaret Turnbull, Neil T. Zimmerman, Turnbull, Margaret C. +20
Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) #FOS: Physical sciences #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2105.14140
openalex publication_date 2021/05/28 · openalex created_date 2022/07/25 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Operating in an unprecedented contrast regime (10-7 to 10-9), the\nRoman Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) will serve as a pathfinder for key\ntechnologies needed for future Earth-finding missions. The Roman Exoplanet\nImaging Data Challenge (Roman EIDC) was a community engagement effort that\ntasked participants with extracting exoplanets and their orbits for a 47\nUMa-like target star, given: (1) 15 years of simulated precursor radial\nvelocity (RV) data, and (2) six epochs of simulated imaging taken over the\ncourse of the Roman mission. The Roman EIDC simulated images include 4 epochs\nwith CGI's Hybrid Lyot Coronagraph (HLC) plus 2 epochs with a starshade (SS)\nassumed to arrive as part of a Starshade Rendezvous later in the mission. Here,\nwe focus on our in-house analysis of the outermost planet, for which the\nstarshade's higher throughput and lower noise floor present a factor of ~4\nimprovement in signal-to-noise ratio over the narrow-field HLC. We find that,\nalthough the RV detection was marginal, the precursor RV data enable the mass\nand orbit to be constrained with only 2 epochs of starshade imaging. Including\nthe HLC images in the analysis results in improved measurements over RV + SS\nalone, with the greatest gains resulting from images taken at epochs near\nmaximum elongation. Combining the two epochs of SS imaging with the RV + HLC\ndata resulted in a factor of ~2 better orbit and mass determinations over RV +\nHLC alone. The Roman CGI, combined with precursor RV data and later mission SS\nimaging, form a powerful trifecta in detecting exoplanets and determining their\nmasses, albedos, and system configurations. While the Roman CGI will break new\nscientific and technological ground with direct imaging of giant exoplanets\nwithin ~5 AU of V~5 and brighter stars, a Roman Starshade Rendezvous mission\nwould additionally enable the detection of planets out to ~8 AU in those\nsystems.\n