Related papers: Developing Atmospheric Retrieval Methods for Direc…
We present a retrieval method based on Bayesian analysis to infer the atmospheric compositions and surface or cloud-top pressures from transmission spectra of exoplanets with general compositions. In this study, we identify what can…
Future space-based telescopes, such as the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST), will observe the reflected-light spectra of directly imaged extrasolar planets. Interpretation of such data presents a number of novel challenges,…
Direct imaging of widely separated exoplanets from space will obtain their reflected light spectra and measure their atmospheric properties, and small and temperate planets will be the focus of the next generation telescopes. In this work,…
Spectral retrieval has long been a powerful tool for interpreting planetary remote sensing observations. Flexible, parameterised, agnostic models are coupled with inversion algorithms in order to infer atmospheric properties directly from…
Future space-based direct imaging missions will perform low-resolution (R$<$100) optical (0.3-1~$\mu$m) spectroscopy of planets, thus enabling reflected spectroscopy of cool giants. Reflected light spectroscopy is encoded with rich…
Future direct-imaging exoplanet missions such as WFIRST/AFTA, Exo-C, and Exo-S will measure the reflectivity of exoplanets at visible wavelengths. The exoplanets to be observed will be located further away from their parent stars than is…
Spectral retrieval techniques are currently our best tool to interpret the observed exoplanet atmospheric data. Said techniques retrieve the optimal atmospheric components and parameters by identifying the best fit to an observed…
We explored two aspects of the problem of characterizing cool extrasolar giant planets in scattered optical light with a space based coronagraph. First, for a number of the known radial velocity (RV) giants we computed traditional forward…
The high-contrast imaging technique is meant to provide insight into those planets orbiting several astronomical units from their host star. Space missions such as WFIRST, HabEx, and LUVOIR will measure reflected light spectra of cold…
In the era of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the dramatic improvement in the spectra of exoplanetary atmospheres demands a corresponding leap forward in our ability to analyze them: atmospheric retrievals need to be performed on…
Exoplanetary atmospheric retrieval refers to the inference of atmospheric properties of an exoplanet given an observed spectrum. The atmospheric properties include the chemical compositions, temperature profiles, clouds/hazes, and energy…
Atmospheric retrieval of exoplanets from spectroscopic observations requires an extensive exploration of a highly degenerate and high-dimensional parameter space to accurately constrain atmospheric parameters. Retrieval methods commonly…
The theory of remote sensing shows that observing a planet at multiple phase angles ($\alpha$) is a powerful strategy to characterize its atmosphere. Here, we analyse how the information contained in reflected-starlight spectra of…
A space telescope capable of high-contrast imaging has been recognized as the avenue toward finding terrestrial planets around nearby Sun-like stars and characterizing their potential habitability. It is thus essential to quantify the…
Direct-imaging spectra hold rich information about a planet's atmosphere and surface, and several space-based missions aiming at such observations will become a reality in the near future. Previous spectral retrieval works have resulted in…
Space-based high contrast imaging mission concepts for studying rocky exoplanets in reflected light are currently under community study. We develop an inverse modeling framework to estimate the science return of such missions given…
With a scheduled launch in October 2018, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to revolutionise the field of atmospheric characterization of exoplanets. The broad wavelength coverage and high sensitivity of its instruments will…
Atmospheric retrievals are now a standard tool to analyze observations of exoplanet atmospheres. This data-driven approach quantitatively compares atmospheric models to observations in order to estimate atmospheric properties and their…
The use of machine learning is becoming ubiquitous in astronomy, but remains rare in the study of the atmospheres of exoplanets. Given the spectrum of an exoplanetary atmosphere, a multi-parameter space is swept through in real time to find…
We present a radiative transfer analysis of latitudinally resolved H (1.487-1.783 micron) and K (2.028-2.364 micron) band spectra of Uranus, from which we infer the distributions of aerosols and methane in the planet's atmosphere. Data were…