TY - JOUR
T1 - AN INFORMATION-THEORETIC APPROACH to OPTIMIZE JWST OBSERVATIONS and RETRIEVALS of TRANSITING EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES
AU - Howe, Alex R.
AU - Burrows, Adam
AU - Deming, Drake
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to acknowledge support from NASA Grant NNX15AE19G.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..
PY - 2017/1/20
Y1 - 2017/1/20
N2 - We provide an example of an analysis to explore the optimization of observations of transiting hot Jupiters with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to characterize their atmospheres based on a simple three-parameter forward model. We construct expansive forward model sets for 11 hot Jupiters, 10 of which are relatively well characterized, exploring a range of parameters such as equilibrium temperature and metallicity, as well as considering host stars over a wide range in brightness. We compute posterior distributions of our model parameters for each planet with all of the available JWST spectroscopic modes and several programs of combined observations and compute their effectiveness using the metric of estimated mutual information per degree of freedom. From these simulations, clear trends emerge that provide guidelines for designing a JWST observing program. We demonstrate that these guidelines apply over a wide range of planet parameters and target brightnesses for our simple forward model.
AB - We provide an example of an analysis to explore the optimization of observations of transiting hot Jupiters with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to characterize their atmospheres based on a simple three-parameter forward model. We construct expansive forward model sets for 11 hot Jupiters, 10 of which are relatively well characterized, exploring a range of parameters such as equilibrium temperature and metallicity, as well as considering host stars over a wide range in brightness. We compute posterior distributions of our model parameters for each planet with all of the available JWST spectroscopic modes and several programs of combined observations and compute their effectiveness using the metric of estimated mutual information per degree of freedom. From these simulations, clear trends emerge that provide guidelines for designing a JWST observing program. We demonstrate that these guidelines apply over a wide range of planet parameters and target brightnesses for our simple forward model.
KW - methods: statistical
KW - planets and satellites: atmospheres
KW - planets and satellites: composition
KW - planets and satellites: gaseous planets
KW - techniques: spectroscopic
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85011304736&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85011304736&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/835/1/96
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/835/1/96
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85011304736
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 835
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 96
ER -