Related papers: Analytic Scattering and Refraction Models for Exop…
Out of the known transiting extrasolar planets, the majority are gas giants orbiting their host star at close proximity. Both theoretical and observational studies support the hypothesis that such bodies emit significant amounts of flux…
The thermal evolution of magma oceans formed by giant impacts is strongly influenced by a proto-atmosphere through its blanketing effect, which suppresses outgoing planetary radiation. While both radiative absorption and Rayleigh scattering…
Lyman-$\alpha$ transits provide an opportunity to test models of atmospheric escape directly. However, translating observations into constraints on the properties of the escaping atmosphere is challenging. The major reason for this is that…
Understanding a planet's atmosphere is a necessary condition for understanding not only the planet itself, but also its formation, structure, evolution, and habitability, This puts a premium on obtaining spectra, and developing credible…
We investigate spectra of airless rocky exoplanets with a theoretical framework that self-consistently treats reflection and thermal emission. We find that a silicate surface on an exoplanet is spectroscopically detectable via prominent…
Clouds are ubiquitous in extrasolar planet atmospheres and are critical to our understanding of planetary climate and chemistry. They also represent one of the greater challenges to overcome when trying to interpret transit transmission…
High-resolution spectrographs open a detailed window onto the atmospheres of stars and planets. As the number of systems observed with different instruments grows, it is crucial to develop a standard in analyzing spectral time series of…
We present radiation transfer models that demonstrate that reflected light levels from three dimensional (3D) exoplanetary atmospheres can be more than 50% lower than those predicted by models of homogeneous or smooth atmospheres. Compared…
The characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres has come of age in the last decade, as astronomical techniques now allow for albedos, chemical abundances, temperature profiles and maps, rotation periods and even wind speeds to be measured.…
Although atmospheric transmission spectroscopy of HD209458b with the Hubble Space Telescope has been very successful, attempts to detect its atmospheric absorption features using ground-based telescopes have so far been fruitless. Here we…
We describe how the accurate characterization of exoplanetary atmospheres in the ELT and JWST era will inevitably require taking into consideration the stellar inhomogeneities caused by convection and magnetic fields. The existing evidence…
Formation of hazes at microbar pressures has been explored by theoretical models of exoplanet atmospheres to explain Rayleigh scattering and/or featureless transmission spectra, however observational evidence of aerosols in the low pressure…
Infrared solar occultation measurements are well established for remote sensing of Earth's atmosphere, and the corresponding primary transit spectroscopy has turned out to be valuable for characterization of extrasolar planets. Our…
Transmission spectroscopy is one of the most successful methods of learning about exoplanet atmospheres. The process of retrievals using transmission spectroscopy consists of creating numerous forward models and comparing them to…
We present theoretical wavelength-dependent transit light curves for the giant planet HD209458b based on a number of state of the art 3D radiative hydrodynamical models. By varying the kinematic viscosity in the model we calculate…
We present models designed to quantify the effects of stellar activity on exoplanet transit spectroscopy and atmospheric characterization at low (R = 100) and high (R = 100,000) spectral resolution. We study three model classes mirroring…
Light scattering is one of the most established wave phenomena in optics, lying at the heart of light-matter interactions and of crucial importance for nanophotonic applications. Passivity, causality and energy conservation imply strict…
Polarimetry of extrasolar planets becomes a new tool for their investigation, which requires the development of diagnostic techniques and parameter case studies. Our goal is to develop a theoretical model which can be applied to interpret…
The atmospheric composition of transiting exoplanets can be characterized during transit by spectroscopy. For the transit of an Earth twin, models predict that biogenic $O_2$ and $O_3$ should be detectable, as well as water vapour, a…
Terrestrial exoplanets in habitable zones are ubiquitous. It is, however, unknown which have Earth-like or Venus-like climates. Distinguishing different planet-types is crucial for determining whether a planet could be habitable. We…