An Information-Theoretic Approach to Optimize JWST Observations and Retrievals of Transiting Exoplanet Atmospheres

TL;DR

This paper develops an information-theoretic framework to optimize JWST observations for characterizing transiting exoplanet atmospheres, providing practical guidelines based on simulations of hot Jupiter targets.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method using mutual information to evaluate and optimize JWST observation strategies for exoplanet atmospheric retrievals.

Findings

Optimal observation configurations vary with planet and star parameters.

Guidelines are applicable across a broad range of hot Jupiter characteristics.

Mutual information effectively measures the efficiency of observational setups.

Abstract

We provide an example of an analysis to explore the optimization of observations of transiting hot jupiters with JWST to characterize their atmospheres, based on a simple three-parameter forward model. We construct expansive forward model sets for eleven hot jupiters, ten of which are relatively well-characterized, exploring a range of parameters such as equilibrium temperature and metallicity, as well as considering host stars over a wide range in brightness. We compute posterior distributions of our model parameters for each planet with all of the available JWST spectroscopic modes and several programs of combined observations and compute their effectiveness using the metric of estimated mutual information per degree of freedom. From these simulations, clear trends emerge that provide guidelines for designing a JWST observing program. We demonstrate that these guidelines apply over a wide range of planet parameters and target brightnesses for our simple forward model.