Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES). IV. Synergy between astrometry and direct imaging missions of the Habitable World Observatory for detecting Earth-like planets

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that combining astrometry from CHES with direct imaging from HWO significantly improves the detection and characterization of Earth-like habitable planets around nearby stars.

Contribution

It introduces a synergistic approach that leverages astrometric data to enhance direct imaging detection of habitable exoplanets, quantifying improvements in efficiency and yield.

Findings

Prior astrometric data increases detection completeness by ~10%.

Detection efficiency improves by factors of 2 to 30 with combined data.

Synergistic approach enhances overall planet yield.

Abstract

The detection and characterization of habitable planets around nearby stars persist as one of the foremost objectives in contemporary astrophysics. This work investigates the synergistic integration of astrometric and direct imaging techniques by capitalizing on the complementary capabilities of the Closeby Habitable Exoplanet Survey (CHES) and Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO). Planetary brightness and position vary over time due to phase effects and orbital architectures, information that can be precisely provided by CHES's astrometric measurements. By combining the precise orbital constraints from CHES with the imaging capabilities of HWO, we evaluate the improvements in detection efficiency, signal-to-noise ratio and overall planet yield. Completeness is quantified as the fraction of injected planets that are successfully detected, while yields are estimated for various scenarios using terrestrial planet occurrence rates derived from the Kepler dataset. Our results indicate that prior astrometric data significantly enhance detection efficiency. Under the adopted detection limit, our analysis indicates that prior CHES observations can increase completeness by approximately 10% and improve detection efficiency by factors ranging from two to thirty. The findings underscore the importance of interdisciplinary approaches in the search for and characterization of habitable worlds.