arXiv subjects

Daniel Kitzmann

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Kitzmann.

78 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Clouds in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets. V. The impact of CO2 ice clouds on the outer boundary of the habitable zone

Clouds have a strong impact on the climate of planetary atmospheres. The potential scattering greenhouse effect of CO2 ice clouds in the atmospheres of terrestrial extrasolar planets is of particular interest because it might influence the position and thus the extension of the outer boundary of the classic habitable zone around main sequence stars. Here, the impact of CO2 ice clouds on the surface temperatures of terrestrial planets with CO2 dominated atmospheres, orbiting different types of stars is studied. Additionally, their corresponding effect on the position of the outer habitable zone boundary is evaluated. For this study, a radiative-convective atmospheric model is used the calculate the surface temperatures influenced by CO2 ice particles. The clouds are included using a parametrised cloud model. The atmospheric model includes a general discrete ordinate radiative transfer that can describe the anisotropic scattering by the cloud particles accurately. A net scattering greenhouse effect caused by CO2 clouds is only obtained in a rather limited parameter range which also strongly depends on the stellar effective temperature. For cool M-stars, CO2 clouds only provide about 6 K of additional greenhouse heating in the best case scenario. On the other hand, the surface temperature for a planet around an F-type star can be increased by 30 K if carbon dioxide clouds are present. Accordingly, the extension of the habitable zone due to clouds is quite small for late-type stars. Higher stellar effective temperatures, on the other hand, can lead to outer HZ boundaries about 0.5 au farther out than the corresponding clear-sky values.

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arXiv2017

The theory of transmission spectra revisited: a semi-analytical method for interpreting WFC3 data and an unresolved challenge

The computation of transmission spectra is a central ingredient in the study of exoplanetary atmospheres. First, we revisit the theory of transmission spectra, unifying ideas from several workers in the literature. Transmission spectra lack an absolute normalization due to the a priori unknown value of a reference transit radius, which is tied to an unknown reference pressure. We show that there is a degeneracy between the uncertainty in the transit radius, the assumed value of the reference pressure (typically set to 10 bar) and the inferred value of the water abundance when interpreting a WFC3 transmission spectrum. Second, we show that the transmission spectra of isothermal atmospheres are nearly isobaric. We validate the isothermal, isobaric analytical formula for the transmission spectrum against full numerical calculations and show that the typical errors are ~0.1% (~10 ppm) within the WFC3 range of wavelengths for temperatures of 1500 K (or higher). Third, we generalize the previous expression for the transit radius to include a small temperature gradient. Finally, we analyze the measured WFC3 transmission spectrum of WASP-12b and demonstrate that we obtain consistent results with the retrieval approach of Kreidberg et al. (2015) if the reference transit radius and reference pressure are fixed to assumed values. The unknown functional relationship between the reference transit radius and reference pressure implies that it is the product of the water abundance and reference pressure that is being retrieved from the data, and not just the water abundance alone. This degeneracy leads to a limitation on how accurately we may extract molecular abundances from transmission spectra using WFC3 data alone. Finally, we compare our study to that of Griffith (2014) and discuss why the degeneracy was missed in previous retrieval studies. [abridged]

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arXiv2017

VULCAN: an Open-Source, Validated Chemical Kinetics Python Code for Exoplanetary Atmospheres

We present an open-source and validated chemical kinetics code for studying hot exoplanetary atmospheres, which we name VULCAN. It is constructed for gaseous chemistry from 500 to 2500 K using a reduced C-H-O chemical network with about 300 reactions. It uses eddy diffusion to mimic atmospheric dynamics and excludes photochemistry. We have provided a full description of the rate coefficients and thermodynamic data used. We validate VULCAN by reproducing chemical equilibrium and by comparing its output versus the disequilibrium-chemistry calculations of Moses et al. and Rimmer & Helling. It reproduces the models of HD 189733b and HD 209458b by Moses et al., which employ a network with nearly 1600 reactions. We also use VULCAN to examine the theoretical trends produced when the temperature-pressure profile and carbon-to-oxygen ratio are varied. Assisted by a sensitivity test designed to identify the key reactions responsible for producing a specific molecule, we revisit the quenching approximation and find that it is accurate for methane but breaks down for acetylene, because the disequilibrium abundance of acetylene is not directly determined by transport-induced quenching, but is rather indirectly controlled by the disequilibrium abundance of methane. Therefore, we suggest that the quenching approximation should be used with caution and must always be checked against a chemical kinetics calculation. A one-dimensional model atmosphere with 100 layers, computed using VULCAN, typically takes several minutes to complete. VULCAN is part of the Exoclimes Simulation Platform (ESP; http://www.exoclime.net/) and publicly available at http://github.com/exoclime/VULCAN .

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arXiv2016

HELIOS: An Open-source, GPU-accelerated Radiative Transfer Code For Self-consistent Exoplanetary Atmospheres

We present the open-source radiative transfer code named HELIOS, which is constructed for studying exoplanetary atmospheres. In its initial version, the model atmospheres of HELIOS are one-dimensional and plane-parallel, and the equation of radiative transfer is solved in the two-stream approximation with non-isotropic scattering. A small set of the main infrared absorbers is employed, computed with the opacity calculator HELIOS-K and combined using a correlated-$k$ approximation. The molecular abundances originate from validated analytical formulae for equilibrium chemistry. We compare HELIOS with the work of Miller-Ricci & Fortney using a model of GJ 1214b, and perform several tests, where we find: model atmospheres with single-temperature layers struggle to converge to radiative equilibrium; $k$-distribution tables constructed with $\gtrsim 0.01$ cm$^{-1}$ resolution in the opacity function ($ \lesssim 10^3$ points per wavenumber bin) may result in errors $\gtrsim 1$-10 % in the synthetic spectra; and a diffusivity factor of 2 approximates well the exact radiative transfer solution in the limit of pure absorption. We construct "null-hypothesis" models (chemical equilibrium, radiative equilibrium and solar element abundances) for 6 hot Jupiters. We find that the dayside emission spectra of HD 189733b and WASP-43b are consistent with the null hypothesis, while it consistently under-predicts the observed fluxes of WASP-8b, WASP-12b, WASP-14b and WASP-33b. We demonstrate that our results are somewhat insensitive to the choice of stellar models (blackbody, Kurucz or PHOENIX) and metallicity, but are strongly affected by higher carbon-to-oxygen ratios. The code is publicly available as part of the Exoclimes Simulation Platform (ESP; exoclime.net).

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arXiv2016

Revisiting the scattering greenhouse effect of CO2 ice clouds

Carbon dioxide ice clouds are thought to play an important role for cold terrestrial planets with thick CO2 dominated atmospheres. Various previous studies showed that a scattering greenhouse effect by carbon dioxide ice clouds could result in a massive warming of the planetary surface. However, all of these studies only employed simplified two-stream radiative transfer schemes to describe the anisotropic scattering. Using accurate radiative transfer models with a general discrete ordinate method, this study revisits this important effect and shows that the positive climatic impact of carbon dioxide clouds was strongly overestimated in the past. The revised scattering greenhouse effect can have important implications for the early Mars, but also for planets like the early Earth or the position of the outer boundary of the habitable zone.

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arXiv2013

Clouds and Hazes in Exoplanet Atmospheres

Clouds and hazes are commonplace in the atmospheres of solar system planets and are likely ubiquitous in the atmospheres of extrasolar planets as well. Clouds affect every aspect of a planetary atmosphere, from the transport of radiation, to atmospheric chemistry, to dynamics and they influence - if not control - aspects such as surface temperature and habitability. In this review we aim to provide an introduction to the role and properties of clouds in exoplanetary atmospheres. We consider the role clouds play in influencing the spectra of planets as well as their habitability and detectability. We briefly summarize how clouds are treated in terrestrial climate models and consider the far simpler approaches that have been taken so far to model exoplanet clouds, the evidence for which we also review. Since clouds play a major role in the atmospheres of certain classes of brown dwarfs we briefly discuss brown dwarf cloud modeling as well. We also review how the scattering and extinction efficiencies of cloud particles may be approximated in certain limiting cases of small and large particles in order to facilitate physical understanding. Since clouds play such important roles in planetary atmospheres, cloud modeling may well prove to be the limiting factor in our ability to interpret future observations of extrasolar planets.

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