Feasibility of spectro-polarimetric characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres with direct observing instruments

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Table 1

Input values to the calculations.

Parameter	Description	Values	References, notes

	– Planet –
P(λ_cnt)	pol. deg. at continuum	0.1	Miles-Páez et al. (2014)
ΔP	pol. enhancement at feature (H₂O)	0.1	Miles-Páez et al. (2014)
λ_abs	absorption wavelength (H₂O)	1.12 μm	Miles-Páez et al. (2014)
Δλ	wavelength width of feature (H₂O)	0.05 μm	Miles-Páez et al. (2014)
^† p(λ_cnt)	geometric albedo	0.25	Montañés-Rodriguez et al. (2005)
^† μ	abs. strength, [p(λ_cnt)−p(λ_abs)] /p(λ_cnt)	0.5	Turnbull et al. (2006)
^† R_p	planet radius	var	Exoplanet.eu^‡ or estimated from mass^*
^† a_p	orbital distance	var	Exoplanet.eu^‡
^† α	phase angle	90°

	– Host star –
m^∗	stellar magnitude in J band (Fig. 4)	0, 5, 10 mag
	(Table 2 and Fig. 6)	var	SIMBAD^**
^† d	distance from Earth	var	Exoplanet.eu^‡ or SIMBAD^**

	– Interstellar, telluric –
	interstellar polarization	0.01
	pol. through telluric transmission	5.0 × 10^-5	Bailey et al. (2008)
	telluric transmittance at λ_abs	0.7	Alt. ~3000 m. Based on GEMINI-S data^§.
	telluric transmittance at λ_cnt	0.99	Same as .

	– Observation, instrument –
Δt	integration time	15 h
D	diameter of the telescope mirror	39 m	E-ELT
	averaged efficiency: (k₀ + k₉₀)/2	0.1	EPOL goal, Keller et al. (2010)
	instrumental (inc. telescope) pol.	0.05	E-ELT, de Juan Ovelar et al. (2012)
	detector nonlinearity term	0.01	Keller (1996)
^† C_raw	inst. raw contrast	(see Fig. 6)	EPICS, Fig. 3 of Kasper et al. (2010)
^† C_det	inst. detection contrast before PDI (1σ)	(see Fig. 6)	EPICS-IFS, Fig. 4 of Kasper et al. (2010)
w	detection criteria definition	1/3

Notes.

^(†)

Not used in the calculations for Figs. 3, 4, but used for Table 2 and Fig. 6.

^(‡)

The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia, http://exoplanet.eu/, Schneider et al. (2011).

^(*)

Using the mass-radius relations in Weiss et al. (2013) and Weiss & Marcy (2014). See text for details.

^(**)

http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/simbad/, Wenger et al. (2000).

^(§)

http://www.gemini.edu/sciops/telescopes-and-sites/observing-condition-constraints/ir-transmission-spectra, Lord (1992).

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