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Directly-imaged exoplanets are unexplored laboratories for the application of the spectral and temperature retrieval method, where the chemistry and composition of their atmospheres are inferred from inverse modeling of the available data.…
We study the impact of multi-layered clouds (low-level water and high-level ice clouds) on the thermal emission spectra of Earth-like planets orbiting different types of stars. Clouds have an important influence on such planetary emission…
Planets larger than Earth and smaller than Neptune are some of the most numerous in the galaxy, but observational efforts to understand this population have proved challenging because optically thick clouds or hazes at high altitudes…
Characterizing the surfaces of rocky exoplanets via the scattered light will be an essential challenge to investigate the existence of life on habitable exoplanets. We present a simple reconstruction method for fractional areas of different…
The transmission spectra of exoplanet atmospheres observed with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) in the near-infrared range (1.1-1.65$\mu$m) frequently show evidence for some combination of clouds and hazes. Identification of systematic…
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…
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…
Observations suggest an abundance of water and paucity of methane in the majority of observed exoplanetary atmospheres. We isolate the effect of atmospheric processes to investigate possible causes. Previously, we studied the effect of…
At optical wavelengths, an exoplanet's signature is essentially reflected light from the host star - several orders of magnitude fainter. Since it is superimposed on the star spectrum its detection has been a difficult observational…
Earthshine observations offer a unique opportunity to study Earth as an exoplanet seen from the Moon. As the Sun-Earth-Moon geometry changes, Earth can be observed as a spatially unresolved exoplanet at different phase angles, providing…
Brown dwarf spectra are rich in information revealing of the chemical and physical processes operating in their atmospheres. We apply a recently developed atmospheric retrieval tool to an ensemble of late T-dwarf (600-800K) near infrared…
Planets can emit polarized thermal radiation, just like brown dwarfs. We present calculated thermal polarization signals from hot exoplanets, using an advanced radiative transfer code that fully includes all orders of scattering by gaseous…
We quantify the effects of refraction in transit transmission spectroscopy on spectral absorption features and on temporal variations that could be used to obtain altitude-dependent spectra for planets orbiting stars of different stellar…
Transmission spectroscopy is a powerful technique widely used to probe exoplanet terminators. Atmospheric retrievals of transmission spectra are enabling comparative studies of exoplanet atmospheres. However, the atmospheric properties…
We derive efficient, closed form, differentiable, and numerically stable solutions for the flux measured from a spherical planet or moon seen in reflected light, either in or out of occultation. Our expressions apply to the computation of…
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…
Atmospheric retrievals (AR) of exoplanets typically rely on a combination of a Bayesian inference technique and a forward simulator to estimate atmospheric properties from an observed spectrum. A key component in simulating spectra is the…
There are different methods for finding exoplanets such as radial spectral shifts, astrometrical measurements, transits, timing etc. Gravitational microlensing (including pixel-lensing) is among the most promising techniques with the…
Transmission spectroscopy has proven to be an effective technique for characterizing exoplanet atmospheres. However, transmission spectroscopy requires planetary transits, which occur for only a small fraction of planetary systems due to…
Atmospheric regions below a refractive boundary are hidden in limb observations. Refraction thus creates a gray continuum in the planet's transmission spectrum which can hide spectral features associated with sources of atmospheric opacity.…