WP1: Project Management
The scientific management was done both by the experienced researcher and the host. All decisions have been agreed by both parties. There was adequate support from the administrative staff at the IAC.
The researcher was readily integrated within the host department, including the completion of bureaucracy, set up of the working environment and access to computing resources. The researcher has developed collaborations with other members of the "Exoplanets and Astrobiology" group at the IAC, mainly postdocs and PhD students. However, in-person interactions during the first year of contract were severely limited due to sanitary measures related to the covid-19 pandemic. These restrictions have significantly slowed down the transfer of knowledge and, consequently, the development of the scientific tasks.
The researcher was also involved in external collaborations, particularly the CARMENES and MuSCAT2 consortia, and strengthened his involvement within and JWST Early Release Science programs, and the Ariel and PLATO mission consortia.
WP2: C&C analyses
The main task of WP2 was to perform complete and consistent (C&C) analyses of the multiple datasets available to characterize exoplanet atmospheres. This work led to publication of our first milestone article:
1. Morello, G., et al. (2022) "The strange case of Na I in the atmosphere of HD 209458 b. Reconciling low- and high-resolution spectroscopic observations", A&A, 657, A97 - doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202141642
In this paper, we have reconciled the discrepant results found in previous literature regarding the presence of sodium in the atmosphere of an iconic exoplanet. The controversy was mainly based on HST/STIS and VLT/ESPRESSO datasets. The key advance in our analysis was consistent spectral modeling of both low- and high-resolution data, taking into account the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect due to stellar rotation along with absorption through the planetary atmosphere.
WP3: TESS classification
The initial plan for WP3 was to improve the automated classification pipelines of targets observed by TESS, starting from the neural network Astronet. The scientific objective was to enhance the discoveries of amenable exoplanets to characterize their atmospheres using JWST, and later Ariel, observations. Due to the overwhelming success of TESS Follow-up Programs (TFOP), and considering that more favorable targets are likely to be discovered earlier, we changed our plan of action with a more immediate one. The researcher joined the MuSCAT2 and CARMTESS collaborations, which are part of the TFOP, and performed observations, data analysis, modeling and writing tasks. He led a first-author paper (under review, first version available on arXiv) on the validation of two rocky planets orbiting around M dwarfs in less than one day, which are also among the top 20 targets for emission spectroscopy with the JWST.
WP4: Communication & Dissemination
The scientific results were published in peer-reviewed journals, mostly with an impact factor >5 (A&A, AJ, MNRAS), and in two Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society (RNAAS). They were also presented in international conferences and workshops.
WP5: Training and Transfer of Knowledge
The researcher has learned various techniques for high-resolution spectroscopy of exoplanet atmospheres, although with significant delays mostly attributable to the covid-19 (as previously explained). In exchange, he shared his expertise on the analysis and modeling of low-resolution spectroscopic data. Recently, he invited several members from the JWST consortium to start a promising collaboration with the IAC group. We are now co-writing several JWST proposals
