With the impending launches of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), we are on the cusp of a new era in exoplanet science. From the Kepler mission, we now know that planets larger than Earth but smaller than Neptune (so-called super-Earths and mini-Neptunes) are the most common type of planet in the galaxy and we have no planet in that mass range in our own solar system. These planets are likely to have atmospheres that span a wide range of virtually unexplored atmospheric compositions, a large range of temperatures, and a number of different irradiation environments dependent on the type of host star. Understanding and interpreting the spectral observations from JWST will therefore prove challening as we lack many of the physical parameters (e.g., reaction rates, branching ratios, cross sections, molecular diffusion coefficients) that are needed to model atmospheric chemistry for these worlds and have no solar system analogues to serve as guidance. The search for biosignatures, and therefore life, requires a robust understanding of atmosheric compositions that are produced by abiotic processes, which is currently limited by our inability to model these atmospheres. Some experimental and theoretical efforts are underway to remedy these issues, but more work is needed. In my presentation I will discuss how we model chemistry in planetary atmospheres with a focus on the information required from experimental measurements or theoretical calculations.

Modeling exoplanet atmospheric chemistry in the era of the James Webb Space Telescope

255th National Meeting (2018)

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