Assessing methods for telluric removal on atmospheric retrievals of high-resolution optical exoplanetary transmission spectra

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Maguire, Cathal, Sedaghati, Elyar, Gibson, Neale P., Smette, Alain, Pino, Lorenzo
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Maguire, Cathal
Sedaghati, Elyar
Gibson, Neale P.
Smette, Alain
Pino, Lorenzo
author_facet Maguire, Cathal
Sedaghati, Elyar
Gibson, Neale P.
Smette, Alain
Pino, Lorenzo
contents Recent advancements in ultra-stable ground-based high-resolution spectrographs have propelled ground-based astronomy to the forefront of exoplanet detection and characterisation. Retrieving accurate atmospheric parameters depends on accurate modelling and removal of the telluric contamination while preserving the faint underlying exoplanet signal. There exist many methods to model telluric contamination, whether directly modelling the Earth's transmission spectrum via radiative transfer modelling, or using a principal component analysis (PCA)-like reconstruction to fit the time-invariant features of a spectrum. We aimed to assess the efficacy of these various telluric removal methods in preserving the underlying exoplanetary spectra. We compared two of the most common telluric modelling and removal methods, molecfit and the PCA-like algorithm SysRem, using planetary transmission spectra injected into three high-resolution optical observations taken with ESPRESSO. These planetary signals were injected at orbital periods of P = 2 days and 12 days, resulting in differing changes in radial velocity during transit. We then retrieved various injected atmospheric model parameters in order to determine the efficacy of the telluric removal methods. For the close-in, high velocity injected signal, we found that SysRem performed better for species that are also present in the Earth's atmosphere across each of the datasets. As we moved to slower moving signals at larger orbital separations, for one of the three datasets, SysRem dampened the planetary H$_2$O signal. In contrast, the H$_2$O signal was preserved for the telluric modelling method, molecfit. However, this behaviour was not ubiquitous across all three of the injected datasets, with another dataset showing a more precise H$_2$O/Fe ratio when preprocessed with SysRem.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_19588
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Assessing methods for telluric removal on atmospheric retrievals of high-resolution optical exoplanetary transmission spectra
Maguire, Cathal
Sedaghati, Elyar
Gibson, Neale P.
Smette, Alain
Pino, Lorenzo
Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Recent advancements in ultra-stable ground-based high-resolution spectrographs have propelled ground-based astronomy to the forefront of exoplanet detection and characterisation. Retrieving accurate atmospheric parameters depends on accurate modelling and removal of the telluric contamination while preserving the faint underlying exoplanet signal. There exist many methods to model telluric contamination, whether directly modelling the Earth's transmission spectrum via radiative transfer modelling, or using a principal component analysis (PCA)-like reconstruction to fit the time-invariant features of a spectrum. We aimed to assess the efficacy of these various telluric removal methods in preserving the underlying exoplanetary spectra. We compared two of the most common telluric modelling and removal methods, molecfit and the PCA-like algorithm SysRem, using planetary transmission spectra injected into three high-resolution optical observations taken with ESPRESSO. These planetary signals were injected at orbital periods of P = 2 days and 12 days, resulting in differing changes in radial velocity during transit. We then retrieved various injected atmospheric model parameters in order to determine the efficacy of the telluric removal methods. For the close-in, high velocity injected signal, we found that SysRem performed better for species that are also present in the Earth's atmosphere across each of the datasets. As we moved to slower moving signals at larger orbital separations, for one of the three datasets, SysRem dampened the planetary H$_2$O signal. In contrast, the H$_2$O signal was preserved for the telluric modelling method, molecfit. However, this behaviour was not ubiquitous across all three of the injected datasets, with another dataset showing a more precise H$_2$O/Fe ratio when preprocessed with SysRem.
title Assessing methods for telluric removal on atmospheric retrievals of high-resolution optical exoplanetary transmission spectra
topic Earth and Planetary Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.19588