Retrievals Applied To A Decision Tree Framework Can Characterize Earth-like Exoplanet Analogs

Abstract

Exoplanet characterization missions planned for the future will soon enable searches for life beyond our solar system. Critical to the search will be the development of life detection strategies that can search for biosignatures while maintaining observational efficiency. In this work, we adopted a newly developed biosignature decision tree strategy for remote characterization of Earth-like exoplanets. The decision tree offers a step-by-step roadmap for detecting exoplanet biosignatures and excluding false positives based on Earth's biosphere and its evolution over time. We followed the pathways for characterizing a modern Earth-like planet and an Archean Earth-like planet and evaluated the observational trades associated with coronagraph bandpass combinations of designs consistent with The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) precursor studies. With retrieval analyses of each bandpass (or combination), we demonstrate the utility of the decision tree and evaluated the uncertainty on a suite of biosignature chemical species and habitability indicators (i.e., the gas abundances of H${}_2$O, O${}_2$, O${}_3$, CH${}_4$, and CO${}_2$). Notably for modern Earth, less than an order of magnitude spread in the 1-$\sigma$ uncertainties were achieved for the abundances of H${}_2$O and O${}_2$, planetary surface pressure, and atmospheric temperature with three strategically placed bandpasses (two in the visible and one in the near-infrared). For the Archean, CH${}_4$ and H${}_2$O were detectable in the visible with a single bandpass.

arXiv commentPlanetary Science Journal. For Source Data see https://zenodo.org/doi/10.5281/zenodo.10105573

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