Spectral Image Models of Planetary Systems for Simulating Exoplanet Observations

Abstract

Future missions to characterize exoplanets will require instruments tailored to finding a habitable exoplanet: suppressing the bright star while still directly observing planets at small angular separations. This problem is compounded by interplanetary dust, a significant source of astrophysical background noise. Instrument parameters must be constrained with detailed simulations, which can be analyzed to determine if the instruments are capable of discerning the desired exoplanet characteristics. A single observation of a planetary disk could constrain the mass of an exoplanet, an important parameter to identify an exoplanet as terrestrial, if the dust distribution varies by mass sufficiently to be distinguished by future instruments. As part of the NASA Haystacks team, this thesis presents work in completing high-fidelity spectral image cubes of our Solar System. New planetary system architectures are presented, designed to test whether we can distinguish between small and intermediate-mass planets by their effects on the dust structure. These spectral image cubes will be made available for processing through instrument simulators for future missions, allowing comparison of known disk structure with simulated observations of the disk.