Related papers: Atmospheric Retrieval of Exoplanets
JWST has begun its scientific mission, which includes the atmospheric characterization of transiting exoplanets. Some of the first exoplanets to be observed by JWST have equilibrium temperatures below 1000 K, which is a regime where…
Understanding planet formation requires robust population studies, which are designed to reveal trends in planet properties. In this work, we aim to determine if different methods for selecting populations of exoplanets for atmospheric…
Contemporary exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheric research relies heavily on retrieval frameworks to recover thermal and chemical properties and perform model comparison in an observational data-driven approach. However, the computational…
Future astrophysics missions will seek extraterrestrial life via transmission and direct imaging observations. To assess habitability and biosignatures, we need robust retrieval tools to analyze observed spectra, and infer surface and…
The occurrence of a planet transiting in front of its host star offers the opportunity to observe the planet's atmosphere filtering starlight. The fraction of occulted stellar flux is roughly proportional to the optically thick area of the…
The quest for atmospheric spectral signatures that may witness biological activity in exoplanets is focused on rocky planets. The best targets for future, challenging spectroscopic observations will be selected among potentially habitable…
Many planetary parameters impact the climate state of Earth-like exoplanets and could vary significantly from those on Earth. However, some of these parameters may be impossible to observe, causing ambiguity in determining exoplanet climate…
Giant exoplanets located >1 AU away from their parent stars have atmospheric environments cold enough for water and/or ammonia clouds. We have developed a new equilibrium cloud and reflected light spectrum model, ExoREL, for widely…
Observational studies of exoplanets are suggestive of a ubiquitous presence of clouds. The current modelling techniques used in emission to account for the clouds tend to require prior knowledge of the cloud condensing species and often do…
The varied surfaces and atmospheres of planets make them interesting places to live, explore, and study from afar. Unfortunately, the great distance to exoplanets makes it impossible to resolve their disk with current or near-term…
Inferring atmospheric properties of exoplanets from observed spectra is key to understanding their formation, evolution, and habitability. Since traditional Bayesian approaches to atmospheric retrieval (e.g., nested sampling) are…
Hi-resolution spectroscopy (R > 25,000) has recently emerged as one of the leading methods to detect atomic and molecular species in the atmospheres of exoplanets. However, it has so far been lacking in a robust method to extract…
The Milky Way Galaxy is literally teeming with exoplanets; thousands of planets have been discovered, with thousands more planet candidates identified. Terrestrial-like planets are quite common around other stars, and are expected to be…
Nearly 30 years after the discovery of the first exoplanet around a main sequence star, thousands of planets have now been confirmed. These discoveries have completely revolutionized our understanding of planetary systems, revealing types…
The era of exoplanet characterization is upon us. For a subset of exoplanets -- the transiting planets -- physical properties can be measured, including mass, radius, and atmosphere characteristics. Indeed, measuring the atmospheres of a…
Phase curves are the best technique to probe the three dimensional structure of exoplanets' atmospheres. In this chapter we first review current exoplanets phase curve observations and the particular challenges they face. We then describe…
Techniques to retrieve the atmospheric properties of exoplanets via direct observation of their reflected light have often been limited in scope due to computational constraints imposed by the forward-model calculations. We have developed a…
A habitable exoplanet is a world that can maintain stable liquid water on its surface. Techniques and approaches to characterizing such worlds are essential, as performing a census of Earth-like planets that may or may not have life will…
The primary scientific objective of this Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) Science Case Development Document (SCDD) is to measure planetary rotation rates of transiting exoplanets to determine the structure, composition, circulation, and…
This invited review for young researchers presents key ideas on cloud formation as key part for virtual laboratories for exoplanet atmospheres. The basic concepts are presented, followed by utilising a time-scale analysis to disentangle…