Related papers: GENESIS: New Self-Consistent Models of Exoplanetar…
With a new generation of observatories coming online this decade, the process of characterizing exoplanet atmospheres will need to be reinvented. Currently mostly on the instrumental side, characterization bottlenecks will soon stand by the…
Atmospheric retrievals are essential tools for interpreting exoplanet transmission and eclipse spectra, enabling quantitative constraints on the chemical composition, aerosol properties, and thermal structure of planetary atmospheres. The…
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…
Context: Low-mass stars and extrasolar planets have ultra-cool atmospheres where a rich chemistry occurs and clouds form. The increasing amount of spectroscopic observations for extrasolar planets requires self-consistent model atmosphere…
Advancements in our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres, from massive gas giants down to rocky worlds, depend on the constructive challenges between observations and models. We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in…
Exploring exoplanets has transformed our understanding of the universe by revealing many planetary systems that defy our current understanding. To study their atmospheres, spectroscopic observations are used to infer essential atmospheric…
The two most successful methods for exoplanet detection rely on the detection of planetary signals in photometric and radial velocity time-series. This depends on numerical techniques that exploit the synergy between data and theory to…
Over the past decade, the study of extrasolar planets has evolved rapidly from plain detection and identification to comprehensive categorization and characterization of exoplanet systems and their atmospheres. Atmospheric retrieval, the…
Intense X-ray and ultraviolet stellar irradiation can heat and inflate the atmospheres of closely orbiting exoplanets, driving mass outflows that may be significant enough to evaporate a sizable fraction of the planet atmosphere over the…
Many evolutionary models of giant exoplanets still rely on simplifying assumptions that are no longer adequate given detailed constraints from Jupiter, Saturn, and modern exoplanet observations. Here, we identify the key physical…
Thanks to the advances in modern instrumentation we have learned about many exoplanets that span a wide range of masses and composition. Studying their atmospheres provides insight into planetary origin, evolution, dynamics, and…
Over the last decade, precise exoplanet transmission spectroscopy has revealed the atmospheres of dozens of exoplanets, driven largely by observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope. One major discovery has been the ubiquity of…
Traditionally, ground-based spectrophotometric observations probing transiting exoplanet atmospheres have employed a linear map between comparison and target star light curves (e.g. via differential spectrophotometry) to correct for…
Context. Clouds are ubiquitous in exoplanets' atmospheres and play an important role in setting the opacity and chemical inventory of the atmosphere. Understanding clouds is a critical step in interpreting exoplanets' spectroscopic data.…
Aims. To create a retrieval framework which encapsulates the 3D nature of exoplanet atmospheres, and to apply it to observed emission phase curve and transmission spectra of hot Jupiter exoplanet WASP-43b. Methods. We present our 3D…
Computation of a grid of self consistent 1D model atmospheres of cool stars, sub-stellar objects and exoplanets in the effective temperature range 300K to 3000K, including cloud formation, chemical non-equilibrium effects, and stellar…
Static structure models, which map mass-radius constraints to bulk planet composition, are frequently used to categorise exoplanets due to their computational efficiency and the high-level insight they offer into planetary properties.…
With the increasing number of directly imaged giant exoplanets the current atmosphere models are often not capable of fully explaining the spectra and luminosity of the sources. A particularly challenging component of the atmosphere models…
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…
We are now on a clear trajectory for improvements in exoplanet observations that will revolutionize our ability to characterize their atmospheric structure, composition, and circulation, from gas giants to rocky planets. However, exoplanet…