Principal Investigator: Michael Line
PI Institution: Arizona State University
Investigators
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Title: A Grid Idea: A New Comprehensive Self-Consistent Radiative-Convective Model Grid for Exoplanet Atmospheres
Cycle: 28
Abstract
Transit spectroscopy with HST (and upcoming JWST) pioneered our understanding of extra-solar planet atmospheres spanning ultra-Hot Jovian worlds to temperate super-earths. This vast planetary diversity leads to many key questions about the nature of planetary climate, composition, and chemistry. Questions regarding the processes influencing molecular abundances, intrinsic elemental composition, and heat transport as well as many others can only be addressed via the interplay between spectral data and atmospheric models. We propose to develop a new large, publicly available, 1D self-consistent radiative-convective equilibrium spectral model grid to advance our understanding of broad planetary atmosphere population trends and to perform Bayesian atmospheric parameter estimation. This new grid will be applied to published and archival HST spectrophotometric transit observations composed of more than 1000 HST orbits over wavelengths covered by STIS, WFC3, and soon UVIS, (as well as countless hours with Spitzer) obtained over the past two decades. Results from this investigation will be used to make predictions for both upcoming HST and JWST spectra for specific planets and also population level predictions in uncharted parts of the planetary phase space where new observations will provide maximal hypothesis discriminating power.