Context: I am currently working on a rather important paper for my career, in the sense that it is a culmination of the past 5 years of (post phd) research. I started this particular article with 3 other members but only 1 other member (senior) has contributed. The other two likely cannot even explain our contribution non-superficially.

Trouble: The other two are very senior researchers and influential community members. However, I should note that they are in no way my boss (I.e. I am a junior prof.)

Question: How can I signal that the other contributor and myself are the main (if not only) contributors to the researchers, without changing the author ordering or removing the other two?

I cannot do the latter for political issues and the former is bad practice in analysis... Any advice? What about putting an asterisk and footnote on our name, flagging principal investigation? I've seen this done in computer science...

Context: I am currently working on a rather important paper for my career, in the sense that it is a culmination of the past 5 years of (post Ph.D.) research. I started this particular article with 3 other members but only 1 other member (senior) has contributed. The other two likely cannot even explain our contribution non-superficially.

Trouble: The other two are very senior researchers and influential community members. However, I should note that they are in no way my boss (i.e. I am a junior prof.).

Question: How can I signal that the other contributor and myself are the main (if not only) contributors to the researchers, without changing the author ordering or removing the other two?

I cannot do the latter for political issues and the former is bad practice in analysis…. Any advice? What about putting an asterisk and footnote on our name, flagging principal investigation? I've seen this done in computer science….