I work to characterize the atmospheres of planets outside of our Solar System (“exoplanets”), through three-dimensional modeling of their atmospheric circulation patterns (winds and temperature structures). These numerical simulations couple fluid dynamics equations with radiative transfer, and optionally also include other complicating physical processes, such as condensate cloud formation and the influence of magnetic effects. I have mostly focused on a type of exoplanet called “hot Jupiters”, which exist in an extreme atmospheric regime, orbiting several stellar radii away from their host stars and expected to be tidally synchronized (so with permanent day and night sides). My group models individual planets in detail to explore their specific properties, as well as grids of models across parameter space to identify population trends.
I am also interested in predicting observable signatures of various physical processes and in identifying new observational techniques that can be used to better constrain the three-dimensional atmospheric properties of these distant worlds. Examples include developing the method of “eclipse mapping”, where we use the time when the stellar disk obscures the planet as a way to scan the brightness pattern across the planet’s dayside and identify how to use the detailed shape of spectral lines in high-resolution spectroscopy of planets to constrain the motion in their atmospheres, from winds and rotation.