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Detection of water vapor in the atmosphere of temperate rocky exoplanets would be a major milestone on the path towards characterization of exoplanet habitability. Past modeling work has shown that cloud formation may prevent the detection…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
We investigate the abiotic production of oxygen and its photochemical byproduct ozone through water vapor photolysis in moist atmospheres of temperate terrestrial exoplanets. The amount of water vapor available for photolysis in the middle…
Ultra-hot Jupiters, an extreme class of planets not found in our solar system, provide a unique window into atmospheric processes. The extreme temperature contrasts between their day- and night-sides pose a fundamental climate puzzle: how…
The upper atmospheres of temperate sub-Neptunes are strongly influenced by atmospheric dynamics due to their cool equilibrium temperature and thereby longer chemical timescales than the atmospheric dynamical timescales. In this study, we…
A terrestrial planet is molten during formation and may remain so if subject to intense insolation or tidal forces. Observations continue to favour the detection and characterisation of hot planets, potentially with large outgassed…
One of the most outstanding issues in exoplanet characterization is understanding the prevalence of obscuring clouds and hazes in their atmospheres. The ability to predict the presence of clouds/hazes a priori is an important goal when…
We are on the verge of characterizing the atmospheres of terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zones of M dwarf stars. Due to their large planet-to-star radius ratios and higher frequency of transits, terrestrial exoplanets orbiting M…
The discovery of super-Earth and mini-Neptune exoplanets means that atmospheric signals from low-mass, temperate exoplanets are being increasingly studied. The signal acquired as the planet transits its host star, known as the transit…
The H2O abundance of a planetary atmosphere is a powerful indicator of formation conditions. Inferring H2O in the solar system giant planets is challenging, due to condensation depleting the upper atmosphere of water vapour. Substantially…
H$_2$-dominated terrestrial exoplanets are highly accessible to atmospheric characterization via transmission spectroscopy, but such atmospheres are generally thought to be unstable to escape. Here, we propose that close-in, eccentric…
The search for water-rich Earth-sized exoplanets around low-mass stars is rapidly gaining attention because they represent the best opportunity to characterize habitable planets in the near future. Understanding the atmospheres of these…
Observations of transmission spectra reveal that hot Jupiters and Neptunes are likely to possess escaping atmospheres driven by stellar radiation. Numerous models predict that magnetic fields may exert significant influences on the…
One of the key goals of exoplanet science is the atmospheric characterisation of super-Earths. Atmospheric abundances provide insight on the formation and evolution of those planets and help to put our own rocky planets in context.…
The hot-Jupiter HAT-P-2b has become a prime target for Spitzer Space Telescope observations aimed at understanding the atmospheric response of exoplanets on highly eccentric orbits. Here we present a suite of three-dimensional atmospheric…
Atmospheric temperature and mixing ratio profiles of terrestrial planets vary with the spectral energy flux distribution for different types of M-dwarf stars and the planetary gravity. We investigate the resulting effects on the spectral…
Thermal dissociation and recombination of molecular hydrogen, H_2, in the atmospheres of ultra-hot Jupiters (UHJs) has been shown to play an important role in global heat redistribution. This, in turn, significantly impacts their planetary…
More than two dozen short-period Jupiter-mass gas giant planets have been discovered around nearby solar-type stars in recent years, several of which undergo transits, making them ideal for the detection and characterization of their…
With the rapid developments in the exoplanet field, more and more terrestrial exoplanets are being detected. Characterising their atmospheres using transit observations will become a key datum in the quest for detecting an Earth-like…
Rotation in planetary atmospheres plays an important role in regulating atmospheric and oceanic heat flow, cloud formation and precipitation. Using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) three dimension General Circulation Model…