Speaker
Description
High resolution spectroscopy is quickly establishing itself as one of the most exciting ground-based observational techniques for exoplanets. Especially the doppler shifts of atomic and molecular lines are an excellent probe of dynamics and thus offer a unique window into the atmospheres of exoplanets. This information is highly complementary when compared to space-based telescopes, which observe at lower resolution. What is more, velocity differences observed for different absorbers are thought to probe their spatial distribution in the atmosphere, unlocking its 3-d nature. To interpret observations that probe the multi-d structure of atmospheres we are developing an open-source extension to our atmospheric retrieval package petitRADTRANS, called pRT-Orange. pRT-Orange divides the atmosphere of the planet into (orange) segments that share common properties such as temperature, abundance, or cloud structure. The location, extent and number of segments can be freely chosen, allowing for simple or complex atmospheric parameterizations. Arbitrary velocity fields can be specified for the Doppler shifts, ranging from planetary rotation to feeding in the dynamic solutions of general circulation models. At the moment pRT-Orange works for transmission only. In my talk I will present the current state of the code development, and grant early access to pRT-Orange at the meeting, if people are interested (with the obvious work-in-progress disclaimer).
