Creating realistic synthetic observations of transiting exoplanets with JWST introducing instrumental systematics
Abstract
The launch and commissioning of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in 2021 will provide game-changing astronomical observations, in particular for exoplanets. The Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) with its Low-Resolution Spectrometer (LRS) will carry out transit spectroscopy of the exoplanet atmospheres with unprecedented precision. The Early Release Science (ERS) program of JWST includes a complete light-curve spectroscopy of WASP43-b hot-Jupiter. In order to prepare the analysis of the observations, several pieces of software have been developed to create synthetic data of such observations. The instrument consortium has created MIRISim, a simulator reproducing as accurately as possible the instrument behaviour, including its noise and systematics, for imaging and spectroscopy modes of MIRI. The consortium made it publicly available. Complementary to MIRISim, we have developed ExoNoodle, a Python tool to generate time-series spectra of star-planet systems, varying over time as the planet orbits around the star. It aims at providing MIRISim with Time-Series Observations (TSO) input files. MIRISim does not include a TSO mode. Changing the source spectrum over time means to restart a new computation, therefore getting rid of the systematics evolution. Here, we present how we applied post-processing to MIRISim data to generate realistic MIRI-LRS observation of the WASP43 system, including the instrument systematics. These simulated data are used to test and improve the data reduction and retrieval techniques the community is building. They will be used in the framework of MIRI exoplanet data challenge to be conducted to prepare the exoplanet ERS program.
- Publication:
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AAS/Division for Extreme Solar Systems Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- August 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019ESS.....433013M