CAREER: Modeling of Super-Earth Atmospheres - Looking Toward the James Webb Space Telescope and Beyond

对其他恒星周围行星的观测将是未来詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜和地球上正在建造的直径30米的望远镜的主要目标之一。研究人员将创建计算机程序，对那些大小接近地球的行星或超级地球的大气结构和组成进行模拟观测。这些程序将用于研究许多不同类型的超级地球的大气特征，重点关注它们的温度和压力。研究者将使这些程序广泛地提供给其他科学家用于他们的研究。这个项目符合国家利益，因为它有助于我们科学地了解与地球相似的其他恒星周围的行星的特性，这些行星可能有生命。研究者还将为STEM准备水平较低的学生教授特殊课程，并为来自传统上在这些领域没有代表的STEM背景的学生创建一个同伴指导计划，以解决她所在机构STEM课程的低成功率问题。研究人员将建立一套计算工具，广泛适用于模拟银河系中低质量系外行星的辐射传输和大气化学。该研究将首先完成Exo-RT的开发，这是一个强大的辐射传输（RT）代码套件，将计算大气结构（温度-压力分布）、发射光谱和凌日系外行星的透射光谱。这个RT套件相对于现有代码的关键改进是其固有的模拟任意大气成分的能力，使其非常适合模拟各种超级地球。然后，将把完全开发的代码应用于对超级地球大气层的若干研究，确定从对其大气层的观测和对其体积密度的测量可以推断出超级地球属性的程度。超级地球的大气研究是未来詹姆斯韦伯太空望远镜和地面30米级望远镜对系外行星进行调查的关键科学动机。在她的家乡格林内尔学院，她还将为STEM准备水平较低的学生开设一门空间推理课程，并为来自传统上代表性不足群体的STEM学生开设一项同伴辅导计划，以解决STEM课程成功率较低的问题。

Observations of planets around other stars will be one of the main targets of the future James Webb Space Telescope and the 30-meter diameter telescopes under construction here on the Earth. The investigator will create computer programs to model the observations of the atmospheric structure and composition of those planets near to Earth in size, or super-Earths. These programs will be used to study the characteristics of atmospheres, focusing on their temperatures and pressures, of many different types of super-Earths. The investigator will make these programs broadly available to other scientists to use for their research. This project serves the national interest as it helps our scientific understanding of the properties of planets around other stars that are similar to the Earth, and which could harbor life. The investigator will also teach special courses for students with a low level of STEM preparation, and create a peer mentoring program for STEM students coming from backgrounds that traditionally are not represented in these fields, to fight lower success rates in STEM classes at her home institution.The investigator will build a set of computational tools that will be broadly applicable to modeling the radiative transfer and atmospheric chemistry for low-mass exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy. The research will first complete the development of Exo-RT, a robust radiative transfer (RT) suite of codes that will calculate atmospheric structure (temperature-pressure profiles), emission spectra, and transmission spectra for transiting exoplanets. The key improvement of this RT suite over existing codes is its inherent ability to model atmospheres of arbitrary atmospheric composition, making it ideally suited toward modeling a diverse set of super-Earths. The fully developed code will then be applied to a number of studies of super-Earth atmospheres, determining the extent to which the attributes of a super-Earth can be inferred from observations of its atmosphere and measurements of its bulk density. Atmospheric studies of super Earths are a key science motivation for future exoplanet investigations with the James Webb Space Telescope and ground-based 30-meter class telescopes. At her home institution, Grinnell College, the investigator will also implement a spatial reasoning course for students with a low level of STEM preparation, and a peer mentoring program for STEM students from traditionally underrepresented groups, to combat lower success rates in STEM classes.