Characterising Atmospheres of Cloudy Temperate Mini-Neptunes with JWST

TL;DR

This study evaluates JWST instrument configurations for characterising cloudy temperate mini-Neptune atmospheres, demonstrating that combined high-resolution spectroscopy can effectively constrain atmospheric composition despite high-altitude clouds.

Contribution

It systematically assesses JWST's capabilities with different instruments and configurations for studying cloudy mini-Neptune atmospheres, highlighting optimal setups for atmospheric characterization.

Findings

Combined NIRSpec gratings provide the best molecular abundance constraints.

Single-transit observations can yield precise atmospheric data with optimal configurations.

High-altitude clouds still allow effective atmospheric characterization with JWST.

Abstract

The upcoming James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) promises a generational shift in the study of temperate mini-Neptune atmospheres using transit spectroscopy. High-altitude clouds however threaten to impede their atmospheric characterisation by muting spectral features. In this study, we systematically investigate JWST instrument configurations for characterising cloudy mini-Neptune atmospheres, assessing the importance of instrument choice and wavelength coverage, focusing on NIRISS and NIRSpec. We consider two temperate mini-Neptunes orbiting nearby M dwarfs, K2-18 b and TOI-732 c, with equilibrium temperatures below 400 K, as case studies and assess observations using different instrument configurations with one transit per instrument. We find that their JWST transmission spectra with modest observing time and adequate wavelength coverage can provide precise abundance constraints of key molecules H2O, CH4, and NH3 even in the presence of clouds at significantly high altitudes. The best constraints are obtained by combining all three high-resolution NIRSpec gratings (G140H+G235H+G395H) that together span the ~1-5 $\mu$m range. Single-transit observations with this three-instrument configuration allow precise abundance constraints for cloud-top pressures as low as 3 mbar and 0.1 mbar for K2-18 b and TOI-732 c, respectively, assuming a nominal 10x solar metallicity. The constraints vary with instrument combinations. We find that NIRSpec G235H+G395H is the optimal two-instrument configuration, while NIRISS or NIRSpec G235H is optimal for single-instrument observations. Absent high-altitude clouds, even single-instrument observations can provide good abundance constraints for these planets. Our findings underscore the promise of JWST transmission spectroscopy for characterising temperate mini-Neptunes orbiting nearby M dwarfs.