Uploaded July 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

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This training session is part of the 2024 Sagan Summer Workshop on Advances in Direct Imaging: From Young Jupiters to Habitable Earths. For complete workshop information see: https://nexsci.caltech.edu/workshop/2024/

Science yield modeling plays a key role in space mission development, including current efforts around the Habitable Worlds Observatory. Yield modeling allows scientists and engineers to explicitly test the impact of engineering decisions on possible mission outcomes, which is especially important for the technologically challenging case of exoplanet imaging.

The session organizers suggest that you review these pre-recorded short talks on the fundamental concepts of yield modeling posted here.

In this hands on session you will learn the basic techniques of exoplanet imaging yield modeling, including:

How to compute the probability of detecting an exoplanet around a given target star (completeness)
How to compute the expected yield for a full survey
How assumptions about astrophysical parameters impact yield
How to model integration times and how the choice of integration times impacts yield
How to model mission constraints and how these impact yield