Searching for Planets Orbiting Alpha Centauri A with the James Webb Space Telescope
Charles Beichman, Marie Ygouf, Jorge Llop Sayson, Dimitri Mawet, Yuk, Yung, Elodie Choquet, Pierre Kervella, Anthony Boccaletti, Ruslan Belikov,, Jack J. Lissauer, Billy Quarles, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Daniel Dicken, Renyu, Hu, Bertrand Mennesson, Mike Ressler, Eugene Serabyn

TL;DR
This study explores the potential of the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI coronagraph to detect thermal emission from exoplanets around Alpha Centauri A, aiming to improve detection limits and complement existing methods.
Contribution
It demonstrates the feasibility of detecting small exoplanets and exozodiacal clouds around Alpha Centauri A using JWST, with specific observing strategies and post-processing techniques.
Findings
Detection of planets as small as ~5 Earth radii possible with 20 hr observations.
Multiple visits can push detection limits down to ~3 Earth radii.
Exozodiacal clouds brighter than a few times our own could be detected.
Abstract
Alpha Centauri A is the closest solar-type star to the Sun and offers an excellent opportunity to detect the thermal emission of a mature planet heated by its host star. The MIRI coronagraph on JWST can search the 1-3 AU (1"-2") region around alpha Cen A which is predicted to be stable within the alpha Cen AB system. We demonstrate that with reasonable performance of the telescope and instrument, a 20 hr program combining on-target and reference star observations at 15.5 um could detect thermal emission from planets as small as ~5 RE. Multiple visits every 3-6 months would increase the geometrical completeness, provide astrometric confirmation of detected sources, and push the radius limit down to ~3 RE. An exozodiacal cloud only a few times brighter than our own should also be detectable, although a sufficiently bright cloud might obscure any planet present in the system. While current…
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