Abstract

Invited Talk - Splinter Exoplanets

Friday, 15 September 2023, 16:45   (H 3007)

Characterising the diversity of atmosphere regimes of gaseous exoplanets with virtual laboratories

Christiane Helling
Space Research Institut, Austrian Academy of Science

The continueously increasing number of exoplanet detections enables to suggest categories like mini-Neptunes, warm Saturns, hot and ultra-hot Jupiters. Still, new discoveries (e.g. HATS-6b, TOI-1899b) keep challenging their direct link to planet formation scenarios. One way to compare and distinguish exoplanets is to study their atmospheres with complex models to provide physical interpretation of wavelength-limited observations. Gaseous exoplanets are excellent targets for space missions like HST, CHEOPS, JWST and also for PLATO in order to study a diversity of atmospheric regimes, including partially ionised daysides and cloud-covered nightsides. This talk will present our efforts to use 3D global circulation models in combination with detailed cloud formation and radiative transfer simulations as virtual laboratories to provide physical understanding for, e.g., JWST and CHEOPS data and to push for polarimetry as mean to explore cloud properties.