Simultaneous Optical Transmission Spectroscopy of a Terrestrial, Habitable-Zone Exoplanet with Two Ground-Based Multi-Object Spectrographs

TL;DR

This study demonstrates simultaneous optical transmission spectroscopy of the habitable-zone exoplanet LHS 1140b using ground-based multi-object spectrographs, achieving high precision measurements that inform atmospheric characterization limits.

Contribution

First simultaneous multi-object spectroscopic observations of a terrestrial exoplanet's atmosphere, showcasing techniques applicable to future ground-based and space missions.

Findings

Achieved 77 ppm rms in 10-minute bins for transmission spectrum

Median uncertainty of 260 ppm in wavelength-binned Rp^2/Rs^2 measurements

Precision was four times larger than expected atmospheric feature amplitudes

Abstract

Investigating the atmospheres of rocky exoplanets is key to performing comparative planetology between these worlds and the terrestrial planets that reside in the inner solar system. Terrestrial exoplanet atmospheres exhibit weak signals, and attempting to detect them pushes at the boundaries of what is possible for current instrumentation. We focus on the habitable-zone terrestrial exoplanet LHS 1140b. Given its 25-day orbital period and 2 hr transit duration, capturing transits of LHS 1140b is challenging. We observed two transits of this object, approximately 1 yr apart, which yielded four data sets thanks to our simultaneous use of the IMACS and LDSS3C multiobject spectrographs mounted on the twin Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory. We present a jointly fit white light curve, as well as jointly fit 20 nm wavelength-binned light curves from which we construct a transmission spectrum. Binning the joint white light-curve residuals to 3-minute time bins gives an rms of 145 ppm; binning down to 10-minute time bins gives an rms of 77 ppm. Our median uncertainty in Rp^2/Rs^2 in the 20 nm wavelength bins is 260 ppm, and we achieve an average precision of 1.3x the photon noise when fitting the wavelength-binned light curves with a Gaussian process regression. Our precision on Rp^2/Rs^2 is a factor of four larger than the feature amplitudes of a clear, hydrogen-dominated atmosphere, meaning that we are not able to test realistic models of LHS 1140b's atmosphere. The techniques and caveats presented here are applicable to the growing sample of terrestrial worlds in the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite era, as well as to the upcoming generation of ground-based giant segmented mirror telescopes.