The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is on a mission to discover and study potentially Earth-like planets around other stars. The main goal of the mission is to identify 25 exoEarth candidates (EECs) as recommended by the Astro2020 Decadal. To achieve this, the mission must consider the probabilistic nature of exoplanet detections and allocate a “science margin” to accommodate uncertainties with confidence.
This research paper delves into the probabilistic distributions of expected yields from a blind exoEarth survey conducted by the Habitable Worlds Observatory. The study assesses and quantifies the impact of various sources of astrophysical uncertainty on the exoEarth candidate yield.
The baseline design for this study is the Large UV/Optical/IR Surveyor Design B (LUVOIR-B), with modifications made to the telescope diameter to evaluate its impact on science margin. Additionally, six potential design changes are identified that could significantly increase the exoEarth candidate yield and reduce exposure times for top-priority targets.
The findings suggest that a combination of increasing telescope diameter and implementing design improvements could offer robust science margins for the Habitable Worlds Observatory. This research paper was authored by Christopher C. Stark, Bertrand Mennesson, Steve Bryson, Eric B. Ford, Tyler D. Robinson, Ruslan Belikov, Matthew R. Bolcar, Lee D. Feinberg, Olivier Guyon, Natasha Latouf, Avi M. Mandell, Bernard J. Rauscher, Dan Sirbu, and Noah W. Tuchow.
This paper spans 90 pages and includes 26 figures and 4 tables. It has been submitted to JATIS and falls within the subjects of Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP) and Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM). The paper can be cited as arXiv:2405
