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SUMMARY:Retrieving the atmospheric properties of cloudy directly imaged pl
 anets - Paul Molliere\, MPIA
DTSTART:20220308T130000Z
DTEND:20220308T140000Z
UID:TALK171266@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Mathias Nowak
DESCRIPTION:Future direct imaging observations will start probing the actu
 al peak of the gas giant planet occurrence rate at ~3 au. This will enable
  the study of the most common giant planet type\, instead of making do wit
 h hot Jupiters\, or today’s population of directly imaged companions\, f
 ound at separations >~ 10 au. The atmospheric composition of gas giant pla
 nets can be extracted from their emission spectra\, and is widely regarded
  as the key for placing constraints on their formation. Because gas giant 
 planets dynamically dominate the process of planet formation in the system
 s they reside in\, understanding their formation is crucial to inform plan
 et formation in general. In my talk I will discuss our work that strives t
 o derive the atmospheric composition of directly imaged planets using so-c
 alled free retrievals. Compared to previous analysis methods\, the strengt
 h of retrievals is their model flexibility\, allowing to let the observati
 onal data constrain uncertain physical processes\, most importantly the fo
 rmation of atmospheric clouds. I will show how current observations of clo
 udy planets often lead to degenerate or biased solutions when inferring at
 mospheric properties\, and will highlight how observations of the just-lau
 nched James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will break such degeneracies\, and
  enable training our methods for situations where JWST data is not availab
 le. In doing so\, the atmospheric composition of cloudy directly imaged pl
 anets may finally be decipherable. I will end my presentation with a summa
 ry of how atmospheric compositions may actually allow constraining planet 
 formation\, and what obstacles need to be overcome.\n
LOCATION:Ryle seminar room + ONLINE - Details to be sent by email
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