The Large UV/Optical/Infrared (LUVOIR) Surveyor: Decadal Mission concept design update

Bolcar, Matthew R.; Aloezos, Steve; Bly, Vincent T.; Collins, Carol; Crooke, Julie A.; Dressing, Courtney D.; Fantano, Lou; Feinberg, Lee; Gochar, Gene G.; Gong, Qian; Hylan, Jason E.; Jones, Andrew; Linares, Irving; Postman, Marc; Pueyo, Laurent; Roberge, Aki; Sacks, Lia; Tompkins, Steven; West, Garrett

doi:10.1117/12.2273848

Cited by 27 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…However, it emphasizes that detecting clean, reliable sources of LyC radiation is difficult without using high resolution HST imaging in at least one filter, and preferably two or more, as well as spectroscopic redshift confirmation in combination with deep ground or space based LyC photometry. Creating larger samples of LCGs at z > 3 will be possible with large spectroscopic surveys that are followed by high spatial resolution imaging with new ground-based 30m telescopes and space-based telescopes such as the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor (LUVOIR; Bolcar et al 2017) This paper has been typeset from a T E X/L A T E X file prepared by the author. Figure B1.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 < z < 5.1 with CLAUDS

Meštrić

Ryan-Weber

Cooke

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Identifying non-contaminated sample of high-redshift galaxies with escaping Lyman continuum (LyC) flux is important for understanding the sources and evolution of cosmic reionization. We present CLAUDS u-band photometry of the COSMOS field to probe LyC radiation from spectroscopically confirmed galaxies at z 3.5 and outside the standard Lyman-break galaxy colour selection expectations. Complementary to the CLAUDS data, we use Subaru multifilter photometry, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) multi-filter imaging, and the spectroscopic surveys D10K, VUDS and 3D-HST. We present a sample of Lyman continuum galaxy (LCG) candidates in the redshift range 3.5 z 5.1. Here, we introduce 5 LCG candidates, where two are flagged quality 1 and three quality 2. The estimated f abs esc for quality 1 candidates are in the range ∼ 5% − 73% and ∼ 30% − 93%. These estimates are based on our derived parameters from individual galaxies as inputs to a range of BPASS models as well as mean intergalactic medium (IGM) and maximal intergalactic and circumgalactic media (IGM+CGM) transmission. We conclude that our search for LCGs is most likely biased to lines of sight with low HI densities or free from Lyman limit systems. Our two best LCG candidates have EW (Lyα) 50Å and we find no correlation or anti-correlation between EW (Lyα), f abs esc , and R obs , the ratio of ionizing to non-ionizing observed flux in the measured passbands. Stacking candidates without solid LyC detections (S/N < 3) results in an estimated f abs esc from galaxies not greater than 1%.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 < z < 5.1 with CLAUDS

Meštrić

Ryan-Weber

Cooke

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…The capacity to detect surface biosignatures is an ongoing consideration in the design mandate of large, space-based telescopes (Fujii et al, 2018;Schwieterman et al, 2018) such as the conceived HabEx and LUVOIR/HDST missions (Dalcanton et al, 2015;Mennesson et al, 2016;Rauscher et al, 2016;Bolcar et al, 2017). Direct imaging spectra and spectrophotometry will allow characterization of the surfaces of terrestrial planets in the habitable zone, producing constraints on surface types, including surface biosignatures, providing the cloud covering fraction is sufficiently low (Sanromá et al, 2014(Sanromá et al, , 2013.…”

Section: Retinal-based Phototrophy As An Astronomical Biosignaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Early evolution of purple retinal pigments on Earth and implications for exoplanet biosignatures

DasSarma

Schwieterman

2018

International Journal of Astrobiology

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We propose that retinal-based phototrophy arose early in the evolution of life on Earth, profoundly impacting the development of photosynthesis and creating implications for the search for life beyond our planet. While the early evolutionary history of phototrophy is largely in the realm of the unknown, the onset of oxygenic photosynthesis in primitive cyanobacteria significantly altered the Earth's atmosphere by contributing to the rise of oxygen ∼2.3 billion years ago. However, photosynthetic chlorophyll and bacterio chlorophyll pigments lack appreciable absorption at wavelengths about 500-600 nm, an energy-rich region of the solar spectrum. By contrast, simpler retinal-based light-harvesting systems such as the haloarchaeal purple membrane protein bacteriorhodopsin show a strong well-defined peak of absorbance centred at 568 nm, which is complementary to that of chlorophyll pigments. We propose a scenario where simple retinal-based light-harvesting systems like that of the purple chromoprotein bacteriorhodopsin, originally discovered in halophilic Archaea, may have dominated prior to the development of photosynthesis. We explore this hypothesis, termed the 'Purple Earth,' and discuss how retinal photopigments may serve as remote biosignatures for exoplanet research.

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“…The year 2002 saw the first detection of an atmosphere on an exoplanet (Charbonneau et al 2002) and the field of exo-planetary atmospheres has expanded rapidly since that time (Marley et al 2006;Seager & Deming 2010;Crossfield 2015;Kaltenegger 2017;Madhusudhan 2019). The future study of exoplanetary atmospheres is of major interest to the astronomical community, with several proposed flagship telescopes set to make exoplanetary atmospheric characterization a major mission objective (Mennesson et al 2016;Bolcar et al 2017;Cooray et al 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An attractive pathway to characterize such a planet around a Sunlike parent star would be via direct imaging and spectroscopy of light scattered ("reflected") from the planet's surface and atmosphere (e.g., Feng et al 2018). As such, two flagship scale missions currently under study, LUVOIR (Bolcar et al 2017;Roberge & Moustakas 2018) and HabEx (Mennesson et al 2016;Gaudi et al 2018), along with a probe-class external occulter to WFIRST (Seager 2018), make the detection of reflected light from rocky planet atmospheres a major science goal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Detecting and Characterizing Water Vapor in the Atmospheres of Earth Analogs through Observation of the 0.94 μm Feature in Reflected Light

Smith

Feng

Fortney

et al. 2020

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The characterization of rocky, Earth-like planets is an important goal for future large ground-and space-based telescopes. In support of developing an efficient observational strategy, we have applied Bayesian statistical inference to interpret the albedo spectrum of cloudy true-Earth analogs that include a diverse spread in their atmospheric water vapor mixing ratios. We focus on detecting water-bearing worlds by characterizing their atmospheric water vapor content via the strong 0.94 µm H 2 O absorption feature, with several observational configurations. Water vapor is an essential signpost when assessing planetary habitability, and determining its presence is important in vetting whether planets are suitable for hosting life. We find that R=140 spectroscopy of the absorption feature combined with a samephase green optical photometric point at 0.525 − 0.575 µm is capable of distinguishing worlds with less than 0.1× Earth-like water vapor levels from worlds with 1× Earth-like levels or greater at a signal-to-noise ratio of 5 or better with 2σ confidence. This configuration can differentiate between 0.01× and 0.1× Earth-like levels when the signal-to-noise ratio is 10 or better at the same confidence. However, strong constraints on the water vapor mixing ratio remained elusive with this configuration even at signal-to-noise of 15. We find that adding the same-phase optical photometric point does not significantly help characterize the H 2 O mixing ratio, but does enable an upper limit on atmospheric ozone levels. Finally, we find that a 0.94 µm photometric point, instead of spectroscopy, combined with the green-optical point, fails to produce meaningful information about atmospheric water content.

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The Large UV/Optical/Infrared (LUVOIR) Surveyor: Decadal Mission concept design update

Cited by 27 publications

References 8 publications

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 < z < 5.1 with CLAUDS

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 < z < 5.1 with CLAUDS

Early evolution of purple retinal pigments on Earth and implications for exoplanet biosignatures

Detecting and Characterizing Water Vapor in the Atmospheres of Earth Analogs through Observation of the 0.94 μm Feature in Reflected Light

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The Large UV/Optical/Infrared (LUVOIR) Surveyor: Decadal Mission concept design update

Cited by 27 publications

References 8 publications

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 &lt; z &lt; 5.1 with CLAUDS

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 &lt; z &lt; 5.1 with CLAUDS

Early evolution of purple retinal pigments on Earth and implications for exoplanet biosignatures

Detecting and Characterizing Water Vapor in the Atmospheres of Earth Analogs through Observation of the 0.94 μm Feature in Reflected Light

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Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 < z < 5.1 with CLAUDS

Outside the Lyman-break box: detecting Lyman continuum emitters at 3.5 < z < 5.1 with CLAUDS