Testing Earth-like atmospheric evolution on exo-Earths through oxygen absorption: required sample sizes and the advantage of age-based target selection

Life has had a dramatic impact on the composition of Earth's atmosphere over time, which suggests that statistical studies of other inhabited planets' atmospheres could reveal how they co-evolve with life. While many evolutionary pathways are possible for inhabited worlds, a possible starting hypothesis is that most of them evolve similarly to Earth, which we propose could lead to a positive "age-oxygen correlation" between the ages of inhabited planets and the fraction which have oxygen-rich atmospheres. We demonstrate that next-generation space observatories currently under consideration could test this hypothesis, but only if the stellar age distribution of the target sample is carefully considered. We explore three possible parameterizations of the age-oxygen correlation, finding that they yield similar results. Finally, we examine how abiotic oxygen sources could affect the results, and discuss how measuring the age-dependence of oxygen could shed light on whether it is a reliable biosignature. Future efforts can expand upon this groundwork by incorporating detailed models of the redox balance of terrestrial planets and its dependence on stellar and planetary properties.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures, accepted to Ap

On the Mass Function, Multiplicity, and Origins of Wide-Orbit Giant Planets

A major outstanding question regarding the formation of planetary systems is whether wide-orbit giant planets form differently than close-in giant planets. We aim to establish constraints on two key parameters that are relevant for understanding the formation of wide-orbit planets: 1) the relative mass function and 2) the fraction of systems hosting multiple companions. In this study, we focus on systems with directly imaged substellar companions, and the detection limits on lower-mass bodies within these systems. First, we uniformly derive the mass probability distributions of known companions. We then combine the information contained within the detections and detection limits into a survival analysis statistical framework to estimate the underlying mass function of the parent distribution. Finally, we calculate the probability that each system may host multiple substellar companions. We find that 1) the companion mass distribution is rising steeply toward smaller masses, with a functional form of $N\propto M^{-1.3\pm0.3}$, and consequently, 2) many of these systems likely host additional undetected sub-stellar companions. Combined, these results strongly support the notion that wide-orbit giant planets are formed predominantly via core accretion, similar to the better studied close-in giant planets. Finally, given the steep rise in the relative mass function with decreasing mass, these results suggest that future deep observations should unveil a greater number of directly imaged planets.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, accepted to Ap

Structure and evolution of protoplanetary disks

We present here a few thoughts on how high-angular resolution observations can give clues to some properties of protoplanetary disks that are fundamental to theories of planet formation. High-angular resolution infrared spectroscopy, either with a large single mirror telescope, or by using infrared interferometry, allows us to probe the abundance of thermally processed dust in the disk as a function of distance to the star. We show that this radial abundance profile can give information about the early evolution of the protoplanetary disk as well as about the nature of the turbulence. Since turbulence is one of the main ingredients in theories of planet formation, this latter result is particularly important. We also show that Nature itself provides an interesting way to perform high-angular resolution observations with intermediate-angular resolution telescopes: if a disk has a (nearly) edge-on orientation and is located in a low-density ambient dusty medium, the disk casts a shadow into this medium, as it blocks the starlight in equatorial direction. We argue how these shadows can be used to characterize the dust in the disk

The Transit Light Source Effect: False Spectral Features and Incorrect Densities for M-dwarf Transiting Planets

Transmission spectra are differential measurements that utilize stellar illumination to probe transiting exoplanet atmospheres. Any spectral difference between the illuminating light source and the disk-integrated stellar spectrum due to starspots and faculae will be imprinted in the observed transmission spectrum. However, few constraints exist for the extent of photospheric heterogeneities in M dwarfs. Here, we model spot and faculae covering fractions consistent with observed photometric variabilities for M dwarfs and the associated 0.3-5.5 $\mu$m stellar contamination spectra. We find that large ranges of spot and faculae covering fractions are consistent with observations and corrections assuming a linear relation between variability amplitude and covering fractions generally underestimate the stellar contamination. Using realistic estimates for spot and faculae covering fractions, we find stellar contamination can be more than $10 \times$ larger than transit depth changes expected for atmospheric features in rocky exoplanets. We also find that stellar spectral contamination can lead to systematic errors in radius and therefore the derived density of small planets. In the case of the TRAPPIST-1 system, we show that TRAPPIST-1's rotational variability is consistent with spot covering fractions $f_{spot} = 8^{+18}_{-7}\%$ and faculae covering fractions $f_{fac} = 54^{+16}_{-46}\%$. The associated stellar contamination signals alter transit depths of the TRAPPIST-1 planets at wavelengths of interest for planetary atmospheric species by roughly 1-15 $\times$ the strength of planetary features, significantly complicating $JWST$ follow-up observations of this system. Similarly, we find stellar contamination can lead to underestimates of bulk densities of the TRAPPIST-1 planets of $\Delta(\rho) = -3^{+3}_{-8} \%$, thus leading to overestimates of their volatile contents.Comment: accepted for publication in Ap

The Exoplanet Population Observation Simulator. I - The Inner Edges of Planetary Systems

The Kepler survey provides a statistical census of planetary systems out to the habitable zone. Because most planets are non-transiting, orbital architectures are best estimated using simulated observations of ensemble populations. Here, we introduce EPOS, the Exoplanet Population Observation Simulator, to estimate the prevalence and orbital architectures of multi-planet systems based on the latest Kepler data release, DR25. We estimate that at least 42% of sun-like stars have nearly coplanar planetary systems with 7 or more exoplanets. The fraction of stars with at least one planet within 1 au could be as high as 100% depending on assumptions about the distribution of single transiting planets. We estimate an occurrence rate of planets in the habitable zone around sun-like stars of eta_earth=36+-14%. The innermost planets in multi-planet systems are clustered around an orbital period of 10 days (0.1 au), reminiscent of the protoplanetary disk inner edge or could be explained by a planet trap at that location. Only a small fraction of planetary systems have the innermost planet at long orbital periods, with fewer than ~8% and ~3% having no planet interior to the orbit of Mercury and Venus, respectively. These results reinforce the view that the solar system is not a typical planetary system, but an outlier among the distribution of known exoplanetary systems. We predict that at least half of the habitable zone exoplanets are accompanied by (non-transiting) planets at shorter orbital periods, hence knowledge of a close-in exoplanet could be used as a way to optimize the search for Earth-size planets in the Habitable Zone with future direct imaging missions.Comment: Accepted in AAS journals, code available on githu

High Contrast L' Band Adaptive Optics Imaging to Detect Extrasolar Planets

We are carrying out a survey to search for giant extrasolar planets around nearby, moderate-age stars in the mid-infrared L' and M bands (3.8 and 4.8 microns, respectively), using the Clio camera with the adaptive optics system on the MMT telescope. To date we have observed 7 stars, of a total 50 planned, including GJ 450 (distance about 8.55pc, age about 1 billion years, no real companions detected), which we use as our example here. We report the methods we use to obtain extremely high contrast imaging in L', and the performance we have obtained. We find that the rotation of a celestial object over time with respect to a telescope tracking it with an altazimuth mount can be a powerful tool for subtracting telescope-related stellar halo artifacts and detecting planets near bright stars. We have carried out a thorough Monte Carlo simulation demonstrating our ability to detect planets as small as 6 Jupiter masses around GJ 450. The division of a science data set into two independent parts, with companions required to be detected on both in order to be recognized as real, played a crucial role in detecting companions in this simulation. We mention also our discovery of a previously unknown faint stellar companion to another of our survey targets, HD 133002. Followup is needed to confirm this as a physical companion, and to determine its physical properties.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure