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arXiv · 2609.35676

K-dwarf starspot hunters: how to directly characterize spot and faculae properties with UV-IR panchromatic transit spectra

Joanna K. Barstow·Caitlyn Cullen·Yvonne Unruh·Hannah Wakeford·Eva-Maria Ahrer·Lili Alderson·Charlotte Fairman·Ulrich Kolb·Nikole Lewis·Cinta Vidante
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Abstract

Transmission spectroscopy of exoplanets provides an important window into their atmospheric composition, structure and dynamics, especially in the JWST era. As the quality of the observational data and therefore the precision of our constraints improves, we become increasingly sensitive to sources of systematic bias in our models and observations. One significant example of this is the Transit Light Source Effect, in which heterogeneous features in the stellar photosphere - spots and faculae - imprint additional spectral signatures onto exoplanet transmission spectra. The effects of this stellar contamination must be accounted for or removed in order to accurately recover the planet's atmospheric properties. Including parameterized models of spots and faculae within spectral retrieval analysis is increasingly adopted as a solution to this problem, but is limited by the accuracy of models of stellar spectra. In this paper, we outline an observational strategy combining simultaneous data from JWST and the Hubble Space Telescope that would enable us to further constrain these models. We perform synthetic retrievals to demonstrate how we could constrain starspot and faculae parameters; we test the impact of using different model spectra in the retrieval; and we consider the impact of variable stellar activity on coadding transits to achieve the desired signal-to-noise. We find that ultraviolet and optical wavelengths are key for breaking degeneracies between stellar contamination and planetary parameters.

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Joanna K. Barstow, Caitlyn Cullen, Yvonne Unruh, Hannah Wakeford, Eva-Maria Ahrer, Lili Alderson, Charlotte Fairman, Ulrich Kolb, Nikole Lewis, Cinta Vidante. 2026-09-28. K-dwarf starspot hunters: how to directly characterize spot and faculae properties with UV-IR panchromatic transit spectra. https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.35676

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