TRIDENT: A Rapid 3D Radiative Transfer Model for Exoplanet Transmission Spectra

Understand

Transmission spectroscopy is one of the premier methods used to probe the temperature, composition, and cloud properties of exoplanet atmospheres.

• Recent studies have demonstrated that the multidimensional nature of exoplanet atmospheres -- due to non-uniformities across the day-night transition and between the morning and evening terminators -- can strongly influence transmission spectra.
• However, the computational demands of 3D radiative transfer techniques have precluded their usage within atmospheric retrievals.
• Here we introduce TRIDENT, a new 3D radiative transfer model which rapidly computes transmission spectra of exoplanet atmospheres with day-night, morning-evening, and vertical variations in temperature, chemical abundances, and cloud properties.