Task Force 1: Mission Observations & Deliverables
Co-Leads: David Wilson (U. Texas at Austin) & Karen Molaverdikhani (Landessternwarte, Zentrum für Astronomie der Universität Heidelberg)
Description: Upcoming NASA facilities targeting exoplanets will gather a range of observational data, which will be used for a number of investigations. Facilities like HabEx, LUVOIR, and Roman Space Telescope CGI will provide reflected light spectra, thermal spectral, planet-star separations+positional angles, and planet/star flux ratios. Facilities like JWST and ELTs will provide transmission and emission spectra in the visible and NIR. In order to explore how to support the exoplanet science of these missions, this Task Force will systematically gather information about the science drivers and data products of each mission. Deliverable: a list of the planned science goals for each mission under consideration, as well as observational data products.
Task Force 2: Target Lists & Target Criteria
Co-Leads: Illaria Pascucci (U. Arizona) & David Ciardi (Caltech/IPAC-NExScI)
Description: Several of the largest NASA exoplanet facilities/missions are planning to conduct intensive observations of exoplanets. Given the SNR requirements for such observations, most of the appropriate target stars would be drawn from the set of nearby bright dwarf stars, with additional possible restrictions based on stellar spectral type, activity level, stellar rotation, angular separation of star and planet, age, etc. Ultimately, these selection criteria are likely to lead to a similar set of targets for multiple missions. Likewise, JWST, Ariel/CASE, and potentially ELTs will be conducting atmospheric observations of known exoplanets, which could have an analogous set of selection criteria. This Task Force will examine the selection criteria for each NASA exoplanet facility/mission. The broad goal is to define a set of requirements that will lead to an archive of between hundreds to thousands of stars. This Task Force will review each mission’s particular selection criteria, as well as the basis for criteria excluding certain star types. Deliverable: For each mission, the list of all stars under current consideration for observation, sorted either by priority or science goal.
Task Force 3: Interdisciplinary Use Cases
Co-Leads: Ravi Kopparapu (NASA GSFC) & Jake Lustig-Yaeger (JHU APL)
Description: A future potential archive should serve a broad user base, from those designing future missions, to those conducting observations and analyzing observations. This Task Force will focus on defining/categorizing the different use cases that we could expect such an archive to serve. Example questions this Task Force may help address could include: How would an astrobiologist/geologist/biologist/planetary scientist/theorist/astronomer want to interact with the catalog and what data products would they want? How could upcoming missions, or far-future missions, benefit from such a catalog and what would they need? What are the necessary precision and ranges required? Deliverable: a list of science cases, covering a broad range of disciplines, that could utilize data from the proposed archive, including the upcoming missions, and which specific observables/properties would be necessary.
Task Force 4: Existing Catalogs
Co-Leads: Jennifer Burt (JPL) & Kevin Hardegree-Ullman (Caltech/IPAC-NExScI)
Description: Many stellar and exoplanet scientific teams have shown great initiative in creating autonomous and accessible datasets, repositories, catalogs, and archives in order to meet the needs of the community. This Task Force will survey the current catalogs and archives within which many of the relevant stellar parameters are currently located. There are mission catalogs, such as Gaia DR2, GALEX, and TESS; ground-based surveys such as APOGEE, GPI, and CPS; and compiled catalogs such as the TIC, Hypatia Catalog, the Starchive, and ExoCat. The goal of this Task Force is to identify the key catalogs that the proposed archive could utilize, and understand their completeness, reliability, and accessibility as well as the amount of quality control, the robustness of their uncertainties, and the provenance of the information. Deliverable: a list of existing catalogs of stellar properties, with a breakdown of the catalog contents, including estimates of the range of values of each parameters and the typical precision.