The next generation of ground and space-based telescopes will image habitable
planets around nearby stars. A growing literature describes how to characterize
such planets with spectroscopy, but less consideration has been given to the
usefulness of planet colors. Here, we investigate whether potentially
Earth-like exoplanets could be identified using UV-visible-to-NIR wavelength
broadband photometry (350-1000 nm). Specifically, we calculate optimal
photometric bins for identifying an exo-Earth and distinguishing it from
uninhabitable planets including both Solar System objects and model exoplanets.
The color of some hypothetical exoplanets - particularly icy terrestrial worlds
with thick atmospheres - is similar to Earth's because of Rayleigh scattering
in the blue region of the spectrum. Nevertheless, subtle features in Earth's
reflectance spectrum appear to be unique. In particular, Earth's reflectance
spectrum has a 'U-shape' unlike all our hypothetical, uninhabitable planets.
This shape is partly biogenic because O2-rich, oxidizing air is transparent to
sunlight, allowing prominent Rayleigh scattering, while ozone absorbs visible
light, creating the bottom of the 'U'. Whether such uniqueness has practical
utility depends on observational noise. If observations are photon limited or
dominated by astrophysical sources (zodiacal light or imperfect starlight
suppression), then the use of broadband visible wavelength photometry to
identify Earth twins has little practical advantage over obtaining detailed
spectra. However, if observations are dominated by dark current then optimized
photometry could greatly assist preliminary characterization. We also calculate
the optimal photometric bins for identifying extrasolar Archean Earths, and
find that the Archean Earth is more difficult to unambiguously identify than a
modern Earth twin.Comment: 10 figures, 38 page
