Understanding Stellar Contamination in Exoplanet Transmission Spectra as an Essential Step in Small Planet Characterization

Dániel Apai, Benjamin V. Rackham, Mark S. Giampapa, Daniel Angerhausen, Johanna Teske, Joanna Barstow, Ludmila Carone, Heather Cegla, Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman, Néstor Espinoza, Helen Giles, Michael Gully-Santiago, Raphaelle Haywood, Renyu Hu, Andres Jordan, Laura Kreidberg, Michael Line, Joe Llama, Mercedes López-Morales, Mark S. Marley, Julien de Wit
(Submitted on 23 Mar 2018)

Transmission spectroscopy during planetary transits is expected to be a major source of information on the atmospheres of small (approximately Earth-sized) exoplanets in the next two decades. This technique, however, is intrinsically affected by stellar spectral contamination caused by the fact that stellar photo- and chromospheres are not perfectly homogeneous. Such stellar contamination will often reach or exceed the signal introduced by the planetary spectral features. Finding effective methods to correct stellar contamination — or at least to quantify its possible range — for the most important exoplanets is a necessary step for our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres. This will require significantly deepening our understanding of stellar heterogeneity, which is currently limited by the available data.

Comments:    White paper submitted to the NAS Committee on Exoplanet Science Strategy
Subjects:    Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
Cite as:    arXiv:1803.08708 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:1803.08708v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
Submission history
From: Daniel Apai Dr  
[v1] Fri, 23 Mar 2018 09:38:05 GMT (1681kb,D)
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/1803.08708