Speaker
Description
Extrasolar planets are very diverse, ranging from rocky planets to
ultra-hot gaseous giants. Ideally, one would like to use global
parameters like orbital distance, planetary mass and the host star's
effective temperature to characterize the planet as well as its
atmospheric regimes remotely. Ultra-hot gas giants, however, defy this
aim since their atmosphere exhibit a wide range of chemical
conditions: The day side is sufficiently ionized to suggest a
stratified magnetic coupling and the night side is so cold that clouds
form. Warm, hot and ultra-hot gaseous exoplanets are the easiest to
observe and therefore allow to characterize their complex chemistry
and atmospheric regimes. Space missions like HST, CHEOPS, JWST, in the
future also PLATO and Ariel enable unprecedented insight, for example:
CHEOPS phase curves point to the presence of of atmospheric magnetic
fields in
exoplanets, JWST provides the first proof of cloud particles in
exoplanet atmospheres and the discovery of new gas-phase species like
SO2 in combination with CH4 and H2O.
In this talk, I will demonstrate how virtual laboratories that combine
detailed physical models are the base for interpreting observational
findings, for putting them into a physical context. The focus of the
talk will be our recent advances in cloud formation modelling combined
with extensive studies of metal-oxide cluster formation, photo-chemical
processes, and complex 3D atmosphere simulations.
