Astronomy Colloquium - Natasha Latouf

A key NASA science goal is to understand exoplanetary atmospheres in the context of habitability. The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) has entered Pre-Phase A development, with a goal of discovering 25 possible exoEarth candidates (EECs), and determining whether they are inhabited or even habitable. To do this, we must first understand how to efficiently characterize them. With the possible technology for HWO still in flux, understanding the detection requirements for atmospheric constituents and characteristics as a function of wavelength is critical to forming efficient observational strategies that can also inform technological development. Similarly, understanding the efficiency of different instrument metrics being considered as a function of possible EEC detections (i.e. yields) will be crucial to determining the optimal telescope design. We use the Altruistic Yield Optimizer (AYO), along with the Bayesian Analysis for Remote Biosignature Identification on exoEarths (BARBIE) methodology and KEN gridset to determine the target yield of an example planet characterization framework, and begin to constrain the optimal search strategy.