Spitzer Space Telescope - Theoretical Research Proposal #30175


Planetary Atmosphere Models for Spitzer Targets

Principal Investigator: Travis Barman
           Institution: Uniiversity of California at Los Angeles

Co-Investigators: 
Bradley Hansen, University of California at Los Angeles               

Science Category: extrasolar planets 
Dollars Approved: 51164.0 

Abstract:
Ground and space-based surveys have revealed a large and diverse
population of planets orbiting a variety of hosts.  Of these new
planets roughly 20% have orbital semi-major axes less than 0.1 AU.
Consequently, the stellar irradiation maintains the planetary
temperatures at levels much higher than for isolated planets of
similar age, opening up the possibility for direct detection.  This
proposal outlines steps toward improving our understanding of
extrasolar planets by modeling their atmospheres and comparing these
models to the growing number of Spitzer observations.  Three important
areas will be addressed:  the degree of global energy redistribution,
the impact of horizontal energy flow on the emergent spectrum and the
measurement of atmospheric metal abundances.