The Impact of Transiting Planet Science on the Next Generation of Direct-Imaging Planet Searches

TL;DR

This paper discusses how data from transiting planet surveys can enhance the effectiveness of upcoming direct-imaging planet searches by providing crucial information on planet characteristics and evolution.

Contribution

It highlights the potential for transiting planet science to inform and improve next-generation direct-imaging surveys, especially in understanding planetary evolution and atmospheres.

Findings

Transiting surveys provide key data on planetary atmospheres and evolution.

Improved mass-radius relationships aid in interpreting direct-imaging data.

Combining both methods offers a comprehensive view of planet formation and migration.

Abstract

Within the next five years, a number of direct-imaging planet search instruments, like the VLT SPHERE instrument, will be coming online. To successfully carry out their programs, these instruments will rely heavily on a-priori information on planet composition, atmosphere, and evolution. Transiting planet surveys, while covering a different semi-major axis regime, have the potential to provide critical foundations for these next-generation surveys. For example, improved information on planetary evolutionary tracks may significantly impact the insights that can be drawn from direct-imaging statistical data. Other high-impact results from transiting planet science include information on mass-to-radius relationships as well as atmospheric absorption bands. The marriage of transiting planet and direct-imaging results may eventually give us the first complete picture of planet migration, multiplicity, and general evolution.