Detecting Exoplanetary Rings with Roman CGI Reflected Light Phase Curve Observations

Abstract

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope's Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) will provide the first opportunity to directly detect mature giant exoplanets in reflected light. However, most known radial-velocity planets lie near CGI's sensitivity limit. In contrast, Saturn-like rings around these planets may be much more accessible: our models show that rings can outshine their host planets by one to two orders of magnitude or more, making them easier to detect than the planets themselves. However, because the planet and rings would be unresolved in reflected light, unrecognized rings could lead to misinterpretation of the planet's intrinsic brightness and physical properties. To disentangle these blended signals, we model reflected-light phase curves of ringed and ringless planets. Ring systems can produce a distinctive phase-curve morphology, often with four extrema rather than the two expected for unringed planets, enabling robust confirmation with multi-epoch CGI observations. We develop an analytical framework for ringed-planet phase curves using a modern, self-consistent coordinate system and use it to illustrate phase curves for a range of ring configurations. We then simulate observations of $ε$ Eridani b (3.5 AU, 1 M$_{Jup}$), a prime initial CGI target, with a Saturn-like ring system. These simulations show that such a configuration would be detectable and suggest that rings may expand the pool of viable CGI targets to planets previously considered beyond reach. We conclude that CGI is poised to provide the first observational constraints on the prevalence of Saturn-like rings around giant exoplanets.