Direct imaging search of young jovian exoplanets with JWST NIRCam

Girard, Julien; Carter, Aarynn; Biller, Beth; Kane, Rohan; Lawson, Kellen; Bendahan-West, Raphaël; Ferrer Chávez, Rodrigo; Crotts, Katie; Marino, Sebastián; Booth, Mark; Palatnick, Skyler; Bruinsma, Evelyn; Bowens-Rubin, Rachel; Klaus Subbotina Stephenson; Strampelli, Giovanni Maria; Mang, James; Sutlieff, Ben; Sanghi, Aniket; Skemer, Andrew; Leisenring, Jarron; Rebollido Vazquez, Isabel; Wang, Jason; Millar-Blanchaer, Maxwell A.; Ray, Shrishmoy; Hinkley, Sasha; pueyo, laurent; Squicciarini, Vito; Pearce, Tim; Balmer, William; Meyer, Michael R.; Perrin, Marshall; Rickman, Emily; Li, Yiting

doi:10.5281/zenodo.20668197

Published June 12, 2026 | Version 2

Poster Open

Direct imaging search of young jovian exoplanets with JWST NIRCam

1. Space Telescope Science Institute
2. University of Edinburgh
3. Towson University
4. University of Exeter
5. UK Astronomy Technology Centre
6. Johns Hopkins University
7. University of California, Santa Cruz
8. UC Santa Cruz
9. European Space Astronomy Centre
10. Centro de Astrobiología
11. Northwestern University
12. University of California, Santa Barbara
13. Macquarie University
14. University of Michigan
15. ESA, Space Telescope Science Institute

Stable and extremely sensitive in the near-infrared, JWST extends the detection parameter space to sub-Jupiter and/or temperate (down to 250 to 400 K effective temperature) exoplanets for the first time. We present a group of 3 NIRCam coronagraphic survey guest observer programs (4050, 5835, 6005) in cycles 2 and 3 that targeted 170 nearby young stars at 2.0 and 4.4µm simultaneously. In the first epochs, we have detected about two thousand sources in the 20-arcsecond field of view (long wavelength channel). The majority of those sources are background galaxies and we use the F200W-F444W colors to grossly discriminate them from potential exoplanets. As this process isn’t proof of false positives we also need to check for common proper motion by means of a second epoch. We have hence proposed follow-up observations for the most promising point sources, potential candidate companions. Around each of our stars, we reach a 0.5 MJup sensitivity and in one third of them, we could even potentially detect young Saturn-mass planets! Our survey has also yield numerous debris disk detections, including some first-ever scattered light detections around M and K host stars. To achieve these results, our teams have had to develop and adapt state of the art PSF subtraction and post-processing techniques, making use of curated reference star libraries built with the sample itself. We will briefly describe the associated challenges and how we overcame them.

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Direct imaging search of young jovian exoplanets with JWST NIRCam

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