Early Exploration of the Scientific Discovery Space for the Habitable Worlds Observatory
Courtney D. Dressing, Danica Adams, Evelyne Alecian, Gagandeep Anand, Giada Arney, Sarah Gomes Aroucha Barbosa, Martin Barstow, Joanna K. Barstow, Rachael L. Beaton, Eduardo Bendek, Svetlana Berdyugina, Julie Biedermann, Sarah Blunt, Sanchayeeta Borthakur, Kara Brugman, Joseph N. Burchett, Eric Burns, Jenna M. Cann, Ludmila Carone, Cody A. Carr, Richard Cartwright, Renyue Cen, Jean-yves Chaufray, Pin Chen, Lígia F Coelho, Kyle Cook, Nicolas B. Cowan, Patricio E. Cubillos, Alexandre David-Uraz, Tansu Daylan, Jessica E. Doppel, Leonardo dos Santos, Meredith Durbin, Rana Ezzeddine, Tara Fetherolf, Theresa Fisher, Leigh N. Fletcher, Luca Fossati, Ana I Gómez de Castro, Kaz Gary, Varoujan Gorjian, Yasuhiro Hasegawa, Qiuhan He, Natalie Hinkel, Keri Hoadley, Renyu Hu, Noam Izenberg, Estelle Janin, Mathilde Jauzac, Stephen R. Kane, Theodora Karalidi, Émilie Anne Lafléche, David J. Lagattuta, Érika Le Bourdais, Mary Anne Limbach, Jacob Lustig-Yaeger, Eric Mamajek, Kathleen Mandt, Frédéric Marin, Taro Matsuo, Stephan R. McCandliss, Michael W. McElwain, Emma Miles, Michiel Min, Leonidas A. Moustakas, Coralie Neiner, Elisabeth Newton, James W Nightingale, Stephanie Olson, Colby Ostberg, Apurva V. Oza, Fabio Pacucci, Roberta Paladini, Niki Parenteau, Lynnae C. Quick, Ramses Ramirez, Sukrit Ranjan, Isabel Rebollido, Bin B. Ren, Kurt D Retherford, Jason Rhodes, Ian U. Roederer, Sabina Sagynbayeva, Edward Schwieterman, Adam Smercina, Krista Lynne Smith, Antoine Strugarek, Megan Taylor Tillman, Vivian U, Georgios N. Vassilakis, Hannah R. Wakeford, Sara Walker, Siyi Xu, Lulu Zhang, Alejandra Aguirre-Santaella, Munazza K. Alam, Amirnezam Amiri, Ramya M Anche, Sarah E. Anderson, David R. Ardila, Karla Z. Arellano-Córdova, Natasha E. Batalha, Thomas G. Beatty, Juliette Becker, Enrica Bellocchi, Mark Booth, Médéric Boquien, Sarah E. I. Bosman, Jean-Claude Bouret, Vincent Bourrier, Matteo Brogi, Andrew M. Buchan, Blakesley Burkhart, Jennifer A. Burt, José A. Caballero, Sarah L Casewell, Frances H. Cashman, Laura Chin, Yumi Choi, Jessie Christiansen, Francesca Civano, Kyle W. Cook, Brandon Park Coy, Brendan P Crill, Leroy Cronin, Håkon Dahle, Mario Damiano, William Danchi, Satyapriya Das, Brice-Olivier Demory, Jamie Dietrich, Steven Dillmann, Chuanfei Dong, Dwaipayan Dubey, Patrick Dufour, Arika Egan, Christiana Erba, Steve Ertel, Raissa Estrela, Vincent Van Eylen, Virginie Faramaz-Gorka, Andrzej Fludra, Sophia Flury, Andrew Fox, Kevin France, David M. French, Marina Galand, Tianmu Gao, Antonio García Muñoz, Miriam Garcia, Kenneth Gayley, Megan Gialluca, Samantha Gilbert-Janizek, Leonardos Gkouvelis, Kenneth E. Goodis Gordon, Clémence Gourvès, Jonathan Grone, Jacob Haqq-Misra, Caleb K. Harada, Zachary Hartman, Samantha Hasler, Calum Hawcroft, Matthew J. Hayes, Amanda R. Hendrix, Brandon Hensley, Svea Hernandez, Erin K. S. Hicks, Benne W. Holwerda, Carly Howett, Ziyu Huang, Richard Ignace, Caitriona M Jackman, Chafi Jamal, Shingo Kameda, Tiffany Kataria, Gagandeep Kaur, Finnegan Keller, Habib Khosroshahi, Alina Kiessling, Kristina Kislyakova, Oleg Kochukhov, Anton M. Koekemoer, Brad Koplitz, Joshua Krissansen-Totton, Jiri Krticka, Alvaro Labiano, Pierre-Olivier Lagage, Steph LaMassa, Erini Lambrides, Alexandra Le Reste, Nan Liu, Joe Llama, Emma Louden, Nataliea Lowson, Isabel Márquez, Evelyn J. R. Macdonald, Meredith MacGregor, Sangeeta Malhotra, Richard Massey, Erin May, L. C. Mayorga, Michael McElwain, Sean McGee, Alexia McKenzie, Athina Meli, Bertrand Mennesson, Connor Metz, Drew M. Miles, Aquib Moin, Mark Moussa, Themiya Nanayakkara, Dibyendu Nandy, Yaël Nazé, Marc Neveu, Eric Nielsen, John Noonan, Jessica L. Noviello, John M. O'Meara, Antonija Oklopčić, Chris Packham, Enric Palle, Emaad Paracha, Lucas Patty, Vasiliki Pavlidou, Sarah Peacock, Chris Pearson, Marc Postman, Andreas Quirrenbach, Swara Ravindranath, Seth Redfield, Joe P. Renaud, Malena Rice, Jane R. Rigby, Giulia Roccetti, Keighley E. Rockcliffe, Donna Rodgers-Lee, Jael Rojas Miguel, Maissa Salama, Samir Salim, Evan Scannapieco, Claudia Scarlata, Martin Schlecker, Steve Schulze, Paul Scowen, Darryl Zachary Seligman, Zacory Shakespear, Evgenya Shkolnik, Nick Siegler, Breann Sitarski, Louie Slocombe, Gopika SM, Russell J. Smith, Jennifer Sobeck, Daphne Stam, Kendall Sullivan, Takahiro Sumi, Yudai Suzuki, Christy Till, Armen Tokadjian, Vasuda Trehan, Grant Tremblay, Noah Tuchow, Margaret Turcotte Seavey, Jake D. Turner, Sarah Tuttle, Asif ud-Doula, Anna Grace Ulses, Connor Vancil, Aline Vidotto, Geronimo Villanueva, Jessica M Weber, Dale Weigt, Maximilian von Wietersheim-Kramsta, Thomas G. Wilson, David J. Wilson, Nicholas F. Wogan, Maria Womack, Michael L. Wong, John F Wu, Mark Wyatt, John Ziemer, Tiziano Zingales, Ryan Begley, Enrico Biancalani, Dmitry Blinov, Alexandre Branco, Esra Bulbul, Guillaume Chaverot, Catherine A. Clark, Jaime S. Crouse, Filippo D'Ammando, Achrene Dyrek, Oscar A. Flores Gaitán, Searra Foote, Cecilia Garraffo, Christopher Garry, Nikolaos Georgakarakos, Arvind F. Gupta, Daniel Huber, Brianna Isola, Nikhita Kalluri, Aafaque Khan, Amir H. Khoram, Adam B. Langeveld, Lucie Leboulleux, Briley Lewis, Anna Lewkowicz, Laurent Mahy, Liton Majumdar, Luigi Mancini, Joice Mathew, Dimitri Mawet, David Mouillet, Shantanusinh Parmar, Junellie Perez, Lorenzo Pino, Alex Polanski, Francisco J. Pozuelos, Tyler Richey-Yowell, Cleber Silva, Ramdayal Singh, Arif Solmaz, Angelle Tanner, Konstantinos Tassis, Luca Tonietti, Laura D. Vega, Aiden S. Zelakiewicz
The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is a future NASA flagship mission concept identified by the Astro2020 Decadal Survey as the highest priority for large space missions. HWO should conduct "transformative astrophysics" and search for biosignatures in the atmospheres of approximately 25 potentially Earth-like planets. To further the early-stage development of HWO, NASA formed the Science, Technology, Architecture Review Team (START). In turn, START invited the scientific community to join working groups to explore the potential discovery space. In this paper, we present 70 science cases that resulted from this process. The cases address four scientific pillars: growth of galaxies (15 cases), evolution of the elements (13 cases), solar systems in context (32 cases), and living worlds (10 cases). Combined, they would address 27 of the 30 science questions and discovery areas identified by Astro2020. The 140 observing programs needed for the 70 investigations encompass a rich variety of spectroscopic (for 87% of science cases) and photometric (for 30%) observations extending from the UV to the NIR. Additionally, high-contrast and polarimetric capabilities would be needed for 34% and 27% of science cases, respectively. Access to UV wavelengths is critical: 83% of science cases need data at wavelengths <400 nm, and 26% extend to <100 nm. In the NIR, 26% of science cases need observations at wavelengths >=2000 nm. Pursuing the full portfolio of science would also necessitate precise astrometry for planet mass measurement, rapid response capabilities, a large instantaneous field of regard, non-sidereal tracking, saturation mitigation strategies, and high dynamic range.
Comments215 pages, 18 figures, 16 tables. This to-be-submitted manuscript summarizes and synthesizes science cases developed by the Habitable Worlds Observatory START and science working groups. See Table 1 for a roadmap, Table 5 for a list of science cases, Figure 11 for a visualization of common observational needs, Figure 16 for connections to Astro2020, and Tables 6-15 (after conclusions) for details
