On the Effect of Stellar Activity on Low-resolution Transit Spectroscopy and the Use of High Resolution as Mitigation

TL;DR

This paper models how stellar activity affects low- and high-resolution exoplanet transit spectroscopy, showing high resolution can help distinguish planetary signals from stellar contamination, especially for favorable systems.

Contribution

It introduces models quantifying stellar activity effects on transit spectra at different resolutions and demonstrates high-resolution spectroscopy's potential to mitigate stellar contamination issues.

Findings

Low-resolution spectra often confound planetary features with stellar activity, especially for late-type stars.

High-resolution spectroscopy can differentiate planetary signals from stellar contamination when planetary RV variation is sufficient.

Stellar contamination causes offsets in measured planetary radii across all cases.

Abstract

We present models designed to quantify the effects of stellar activity on exoplanet transit spectroscopy and atmospheric characterization at low (R = 100) and high (R = 100,000) spectral resolution. We study three model classes mirroring planetary system archetypes: a hot Jupiter around an early-K star (HD 189733 b); a mini-Neptune around an early-M dwarf (K2-18 b); and terrestrial planets around a late M dwarf (TRAPPIST-1). We map photospheres with temperatures and radial velocities (RV) and integrate specific intensity stellar models. We obtain transit spectra affected by stellar contamination, the Rossiter--McLaughlin effect (RME), and center-to-limb variations (CLV). We find that, at low resolution, for later-type stars, planetary water features become difficult to distinguish from contamination. Many distributions of unocculted active regions can induce planetary-like features of similar amplitudes in the case of a late M dwarf. Atmospheric characterization of planets around late-type stars will likely continue to suffer from degeneracy with stellar activity unless active regions' parameters can be constrained using additional information. For the early-K star, stellar contamination mostly manifests itself through a slope at optical wavelengths similar to Rayleigh scattering. In all cases, contamination induces offsets in measured planet radii. At high resolution, we show that we can determine the origin of $\text{H}_2$O and CO detection signals and lift the degeneracy observed at low resolution, provided sufficient planet RV variation during transit and adequate correction for the RME and CLV when required. High-resolution spectroscopy may therefore help resolve issues arising from stellar contamination for favorable systems.