Chemistry of Brown Dwarfs, Exoplanets, and Low-Mass Stars

PI和她的团队将采用他们以前用于模拟太阳系行星的大气化学技术，并将其应用于研究低质量恒星，褐矮星（质量介于恒星和行星之间的物体）和系外行星（太阳系外的行星）。这些天体都有一个共同点，它们的温度足够低（T 2600 K），可以进行分子气体和云化学。 该项目的一个重点将是不同于太阳的化学成分对这些物体的大气化学的影响。他们还将研究氘化学，以帮助确定行星-恒星边界。 该团队将为这些研究产生的热力学数据开发一个基于网络的平台，这与天文学，行星科学，地球化学，化学工程，材料科学以及工业科学家有关。他们将培训和指导研究生和本科生的研究，包括那些通过跨校园的倡议主修计算机科学。 科学成果将纳入新的和修订的教科书。调查人员将通过进行热化学和动力学计算来完成这一目标，以研究不同金属含量和不同C/O比下的气体和凝析油形态，并确定可能的化学金属含量指标。 然后，他们将把计算结果应用于热辐射气体巨系外行星，以及ML矮星和亚矮星。 他们还将与合作者合作，扩大云和金属丰度效应的光度和光谱特征的模型。氘（D）化学工作将通过推导D/H交换反应的热力学和速率数据，扩展现有的计算方案;运行计算并分析最丰富和/或光谱活性的含D气体的结果来完成。

The PI and her team will take atmospheric chemistry techniques that they previously used to model planets in our solar system, and apply them to the study of low-mass stars, brown dwarfs (objects with masses between that of stars and planets) and exoplanets (planets outside of our solar system). These objects all have in common that they are low enough temperature (T 2600 K) to undergo molecular gas- and cloud-chemistry. One focus of this project will be on the effects that chemical compositions different from the Sun have on the atmospheric chemistry of these objects. They will also investigate the deuterium chemistry to help define the planet-star boundary. The team will develop a web-based platform for the thermodynamic data resulting from these studies, which is relevant to scientists in astronomy, planetary science, geochemistry, chemical engineering, materials science as well as industry. They will train and mentor a graduate student and undergraduate students in research, including those majoring in computer science through a cross-campus intitiative. Scientific results will be integrated into new and revised textbooks. The investigators will accomplish this by carrying out thermochemical and kinetic computations to study gas and condensate speciation at different metallicities and varying C/O ratios and to identify possible chemical metallicity indicators. They will then apply results from the computations to hot irradiated gas giant exoplanets, and M&L dwarfs and subdwarfs. They will also work with collaborators to expand models of photometric and spectroscopic signatures of clouds and metallicity effects. The deuterium (D) chemistry work will be done by deriving the thermodynamic and rate data for D/H exchange reactions, expanding the existing computational schemes; running the computations and analyzing the results for the most abundant and/or spectroscopically active D-bearing gases.