Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE). XIV. Finding terrestrial protoplanets in the galactic neighborhood
Creators: name: Cesario, Lorenzo
name: Lichtenberg, Tim
name: Alei, Eleonora
name: Carrión-González, Óscar
name: Dannert, Felix A.
name: Defrère, Denis
name: Ertel, Steve
name: Fortier, Andrea
name: Muñoz, A. García
name: Glauser, Adrian M.
name: Hansen, Jonah T.
name: Helled, Ravit
name: Huber, Philipp A.
name: Ireland, Michael J.
name: Kammerer, Jens
name: Laugier, Romain
name: Lillo-Box, Jorge
name: Menti, Franziska
name: Meyer, Michael R.
name: Noack, Lena
name: Quanz, Sascha P.
name: Quirrenbach, Andreas
name: Rugheimer, Sarah
name: van der Tak, Floris
name: Wang, Haiyang S.
name: Anger, Marius
name: Balsalobre-Ruza, Olga
name: Bhattarai, Surendra
name: Braam, Marrick
name: Castro-González, Amadeo
name: Cockell, Charles S.
name: Constantinou, Tereza
name: Cugno, Gabriele
name: Davoult, Jeanne
name: Güdel, Manuel
name: Hernitschek, Nina
name: Hinkley, Sasha
name: Itoh, Satoshi
name: Janson, Markus
name: Johansen, Anders
name: Jones, Hugh R. A.
name: Kane, Stephen R.
name: van Kempen, Tim A.
name: Kislyakova, Kristina G.
name: Korth, Judith
name: Kovacevic, Andjelka B.
name: Kraus, Stefan
name: Kuiper, Rolf
name: Mathew, Joice
name: Matsuo, Taro
name: Miguel, Yamila
name: Min, Michiel
name: Navarro, Ramon
name: Ramirez, Ramses M.
name: Rauer, Heike
name: Ricketti, Berke Vow
name: Romagnolo, Amedeo
name: Schlecker, Martin
name: Sneed, Evan L.
name: Squicciarini, Vito
name: Stassun, Keivan G.
name: Tamura, Motohide
name: Viudez-Moreiras, Daniel
name: Wordsworth, Robin D.
name: Collaboration, the LIFE
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Geophysics (physics.geo-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The increased brightness temperature of young rocky protoplanets during their magma ocean epoch makes them potentially amenable to atmospheric characterization to distances from the solar system far greater than thermally equilibrated terrestrial exoplanets, offering observational opportunities for unique insights into the origin of secondary atmospheres and the near surface conditions of prebiotic environments. The Large Interferometer For Exoplanets (LIFE) mission will employ a space-based mid-infrared nulling interferometer to directly measure the thermal emission of terrestrial exoplanets. Here, we seek to assess the capabilities of various instrumental design choices of the LIFE mission concept for the detection of cooling protoplanets with transient high-temperature magma ocean atmospheres, in young stellar associations in particular. Using the LIFE mission instrument simulator (LIFEsim) we assess how specific instrumental parameters and design choices, such as wavelength coverage, aperture diameter, and photon throughput, facilitate or disadvantage the detection of protoplanets. We focus on the observational sensitivities of distance to the observed planetary system, protoplanet brightness temperature using a blackbody assumption, and orbital distance of the potential protoplanets around both G- and M-dwarf stars. Our simulations suggest that LIFE will be able to detect (S/N $\geq$ 7) hot protoplanets in young stellar associations up to distances of $\approx$100 pc from the solar system for reasonable integration times (up to $\sim$hours). Detection of an Earth-sized protoplanet orbiting a solar-sized host star at 1 AU requires less than 30 minutes of integration time. M-dwarfs generally need shorter integration times. The contribution from wavelength regions $&lt;$6 $μ$m is important for decreasing the detection threshold and discriminating emission temperatures.
description: 18 pages, 19 figures; accepted for publication in A&amp;A