Two NIRCam channels are Better than One: How JWST Can Do More Science with NIRCam's Short-Wavelength Dispersed Hartmann Sensor

Abstract

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) offers unprecedented sensitivity, stability, and wavelength coverage for transiting exoplanet studies, opening up new avenues for measuring atmospheric abundances, structure, and temperature profiles. Taking full advantage of JWST spectroscopy of planets from 0.6um to 28um, however, will require many observations with a combination of the NIRISS, NIRCam, NIRSpec, and MIRI instruments. In this white paper, we discuss a new NIRCam mode (not yet approved or implemented) that can reduce the number of necessary observations to cover the 1.0um to 5.0um wavelength range. Even though NIRCam was designed primarily as an imager, it also includes several grisms for phasing and aligning JWST's 18 hexagonal mirror segments. NIRCam's long-wavelength channel includes grisms that cover 2.4um to 5.0um with a resolving power of R = 1200 - 1550 using two separate configurations. The long-wavelength grisms have already been approved for science operations, including wide field and single object (time series) slitless spectroscopy. We propose a new mode that will simultaneously measure spectra for science targets in the 1.0um to 2.0um range using NIRCam's short-wavelength channel. This mode, if approved, would take advantage of NIRCam's Dispersed Hartmann Sensor (DHS), which produces 10 spatially separated spectra per source at R ~ 300. We discuss the added benefit of the DHS in constraining abundances in exoplanet atmospheres as well as its ability to observe the brightest systems. The DHS essentially comes for free (at no time cost) with any NIRCam long-wavelength grism observation, but the detector integration parameters have to be selected to ensure that the long-wavelength grism observations do not saturate and that JWST data volume downlink constraints are not violated.

10 pages, accepted to PASP

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• The Detectability and Characterization of the TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanet Atmospheres with JWST
• JWST Noise Floor I: Random Error Sources in JWST NIRCam Time Series
• Two massive rocky planets transiting a K-dwarf 6.5 parsecs away
• Transit detection of the long-period volatile-rich super-Earth ${\nu }^2$ Lupi d with $CHEOPS$
• JWST Noise Floor II: Systematic Error Sources in JWST NIRCam Time Series
• A System of Three Super Earths Transiting the Late K-Dwarf GJ 9827 at Thirty Parsecs
• An Information-Theoretic Approach to Optimize JWST Observations and Retrievals of Transiting Exoplanet Atmospheres
• JWST NIRCam Defocused Imaging: Photometric Stability Performance and How it Can Sense Mirror Tilts
• Hiding in plain sight: observing planet-starspot crossings with the James Webb Space Telescope
• Revisiting the HD 21749 Planetary System with Stellar Activity Modeling