Exoplanetology: Exoplanets & Exomoons

Identification Of The Top TESS Objects Of Interest For Atmospheric Characterization Of Transiting Exoplanets With JWST

By Keith Cowing
Status Report
astro-ph.EP
August 21, 2023
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Identification Of The Top TESS Objects Of Interest For Atmospheric Characterization Of Transiting Exoplanets With JWST
Starfield around TOI-4336.01 in TESS Sector 38 used by TRICERATOPS in its FPP and nearby false positive probability (NFPP) calculations. Left: plot of the positions of each star within 2.5 arcminutes centered on the target with the color of each point representing the TESS magnitude of the star. The overlaid grid denotes the TESS pixel borders with pixel column and row numbers labeled on the X and Y axis, respectively. The dashed gray circle represents a distance of 2.5 arcminutes and the red squares denote the extraction aperture used by the SPOC when generating the PDC SAP light curve for this TESS sector. Right: Same as left but instead of displaying each background star near the target, TESS data are shown. The SPOC extraction aperture is in red and the colormap represents the flux captured by each TESS pixel. — astro-ph.EP

JWST has ushered in an era of unprecedented ability to characterize exoplanetary atmospheres. While there are over 5,000 confirmed planets, more than 4,000 TESS planet candidates are still unconfirmed and many of the best planets for atmospheric characterization may remain to be identified.

We present a sample of TESS planets and planet candidates that we identify as “best-in-class” for transmission and emission spectroscopy with JWST. These targets are sorted into bins across equilibrium temperature Teq and planetary radius Rp and are ranked by transmission and emission spectroscopy metric (TSM and ESM, respectively) within each bin. In forming our target sample, we perform cuts for expected signal size and stellar brightness, to remove sub-optimal targets for JWST.

Of the 194 targets in the resulting sample, 103 are unconfirmed TESS planet candidates, also known as TESS Objects of Interest (TOIs). We perform vetting and statistical validation analyses on these 103 targets to determine which are likely planets and which are likely false positives, incorporating ground-based follow-up from the TESS Follow-up Observation Program (TFOP) to aid the vetting and validation process.

We statistically validate 23 TOIs, marginally validate 33 TOIs to varying levels of confidence, deem 29 TOIs likely false positives, and leave the dispositions for 4 TOIs as inconclusive. 14 of the 103 TOIs were confirmed independently over the course of our analysis. We provide our final best-in-class sample as a community resource for future JWST proposals and observations.

We intend for this work to motivate formal confirmation and mass measurements of each validated planet and encourage more detailed analysis of individual targets by the community.

Benjamin J. Hord, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, Thomas Mikal-Evans, David W. Latham, David R. Ciardi, Diana Dragomir, Knicole D. Colón, Gabrielle Ross, Andrew Vanderburg, Zoe L. de Beurs, Karen A. Collins, Cristilyn N. Watkins, Jacob Bean, Nicolas B. Cowan, Tansu Daylan, Caroline V. Morley, Jegug Ih, David Baker, Khalid Barkaoui, Natalie M. Batalha, Aida Behmard, Alexander Belinski, Zouhair Benkhaldoun, Paul Benni, Krzysztof Bernacki, Allyson Bieryla, Avraham Binnenfeld, Pau Bosch-Cabot, François Bouchy, Valerio Bozza, Rafael Brahm, Lars A. Buchhave, Michael Calkins, Ashley Chontos, Catherine A. Clark, Ryan Cloutier, Marion Cointepas, Kevin I. Collins, Dennis M. Conti, Ian J. M. Crossfield, Fei Dai, Jerome P. de Leon, Georgina Dransfield, Courtney Dressing, Adam Dustor, Gilbert Esquerdo, Phil Evans, Sergio B. Fajardo-Acosta, Jerzy Fiołka, Raquel Forés-Toribio, Antonio Frasca, Akihiko Fukui, Benjamin Fulton, Elise Furlan, Tianjun Gan, Davide Gandolfi, Mourad Ghachoui, Steven Giacalone, Emily A. Gilbert, Michaël Gillon, Eric Girardin, Erica Gonzales, Ferran Grau Horta, Joao Gregorio, Michael Greklek-McKeon, Pere Guerra, J. D. Hartman, Coel Hellier, Krzysztof G. Hełminiak, Thomas Henning, Michelle L. Hill, Keith Horne, Andrew W. Howard, Steve B. Howell, Daniel Huber, Howard Isaacson, Giovanni Isopi, Emmanuel Jehin, Jon M. Jenkins, Eric L. N. Jensen, Marshall C. Johnson, Andrés Jordán, Stephen R. Kane, John F. Kielkopf, Vadim Krushinsky, Sławomir Lasota, Elena Lee, Pablo Lewin, John H. Livingston, Jack Lubin, Michael B. Lund, Franco Mallia, Christopher R. Mann, Giuseppe Marino, Nataliia Maslennikova, Bob Massey, Rachel Matson, Elisabeth Matthews, Andrew W. Mayo, Tsevi Mazeh et al. (45 additional authors not shown)

Comments: Submitted to AJ. Machine-readable versions of Tables 2 and 3 are included. 40 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables
Subjects: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
Cite as: arXiv:2308.09617 [astro-ph.EP] (or arXiv:2308.09617v1 [astro-ph.EP] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2308.09617
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Submission history
From: Ben Hord
[v1] Fri, 18 Aug 2023 15:20:39 UTC (8,063 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.09617
Astrobiology,

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻