Abstract
Abstract
Radiative transfer (RT) models are critical in the interpretation of exoplanetary spectra, in simulating exoplanet climates, and when designing the specifications of future flagship observatories. However, most models differ in methodologies and input data, which can lead to significantly different spectra. In this paper, we present the experimental protocol of the Modeling Atmospheric Lines By the Exoplanet Community (MALBEC) project. MALBEC is an exoplanet model intercomparison project that belongs to the Climates Using Interactive Suites of Intercomparisons Nested for Exoplanet Studies framework, which aims to provide the exoplanet community with a large and diverse set of comparison and validation of models. The proposed protocol tests include a large set of initial participating RT models, a broad range of atmospheres (from hot Jupiters to temperate terrestrials), and several observation geometries, which would allow us to quantify and compare the differences between different RT models used by the exoplanetary community. Two types of tests are proposed: transit spectroscopy and direct imaging modeling, with results from the proposed tests to be published in dedicated follow-up papers. To encourage the community to join this comparison effort and as an example, we present simulation results for one specific transit case (GJ-1214 b), in which we find notable differences in how the various codes handle the discretization of the atmospheres (e.g., sub-layering), the treatment of molecular opacities (e.g., correlated-k, line-by-line) and the default spectroscopic repositories generally used by each model (e.g., HITRAN, HITEMP, ExoMol).
Funder
NASA ∣ Goddard Space Flight Center
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Cited by
2 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献