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NO Biomarker: Transmission and Emission Methods for Its Potential Detection in Exoplanet Atmospheres with Spektr-UF (WSO-UV)

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Abstract

Among all habitability factors for terrestrial exoplanets, one of the most important is the presence of a secondary N2–O2 dominant atmosphere on an exoplanet. This factor can potentially indicate the already existing geological and biological processes on the exoplanet. Meanwhile, direct characterization of the N2‒O2 atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets is a difficult observational task. There are only a few indicators (molecules) of such an atmosphere, among which one can single out a potential biomarker—a molecule of nitric oxide NO. The strongest spectral features of this molecule in the ultraviolet range are γ-bands (203‒248 nm). An important role in the search for potential biomarkers on exoplanets, including the detection of NO γ-bands, can be played by planned for the launch Spectr-UF (WSO-UV) space observatory. Estimates of the possibility of detecting the transmission of light in γ-bands in the atmospheres of exoplanets with this observatory are presented in this paper. The methods of emission and transmission spectroscopy are compared as applied to the detection of NO. Based on the results of this study, it is shown that there is a potential possibility of detecting a transmission signal in the NO γ-bands in the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets (<10 pc) using the LSS spectrograph of the Spectr-UF (WSO-UV) observatory. At the same time, the imposed restrictions for the detection of this signal on more distant exoplanets are presented.

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Notes

  1. https://www.uv-vis-spectral-atlas-mainz.org/uvvis/.

  2. https://hitran.org/.

  3. This study used the NASA Exoplanet Archive, which is operated by the California Institute of Technology under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as part of the Exoplanet Research Program.

  4. https://vpl.astro.washington.edu/spectra/stellar/.

  5. Version 2.2 of the adapted panchromatic spectrum of the star with a resolution of 1 Å from the MUSCLES database was used.

  6. https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/890/23.

  7. https://github.com/parkus/galex_motion.

  8. https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/galex/FAQ/counts_background.html.

  9. https://www.stsci.edu/hst/instrumentation/reference-data-for-calibration-and-tools/astronomical-catalogs/pickles-atlas.

  10. For a star of spectral type G8V in the considered spectral range of 180–250 nm, the Pickles atlas uses data from [67], in which, in turn, the spectrum of a given star is constructed based on a combination of stellar spectra: Tau Ceti [68], 61 Uma, HD 122742, HD 144287, HD 144579, HD 154345, HD 210612.

  11. https://github.com/VirtualPlanetaryLaboratory/vplanet.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors of the paper would like to thank Valerii Ivanovich Shematovich, Andrei Georgievich Zhilkin and Yurii Vasil’evich Pakhomov for helpful discussions. The authors of the paper also thank the reviewer for valuable comments.

Funding

The study was funded by the Russian Science Foundation (project no. 22-12-00364).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Astronomy, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    G. N. Tsurikov & D. V. Bisikalo

  2. National Center for Physics and Mathematics, Sarov, Russia

    D. V. Bisikalo

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  1. G. N. Tsurikov
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Tsurikov, G.N., Bisikalo, D.V. NO Biomarker: Transmission and Emission Methods for Its Potential Detection in Exoplanet Atmospheres with Spektr-UF (WSO-UV). Astron. Rep. 67, 1123–1138 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063772923110100

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