Forward Modeling and Retrievals with PLATON, a Fast Open-source Tool
Abstract
We introduce PLanetary Atmospheric Transmission for Observer Noobs (PLATON), a Python package that calculates transmission spectra for exoplanets and retrieves atmospheric characteristics based on observed spectra. PLATON is easy to install and use, with common use cases taking no more than a few lines of code. It is also fast, with the forward model taking much less than one second, and a typical retrieval finishing in minutes on an ordinary desktop. PLATON supports the most common atmospheric parameters, such as temperature, metallicity, C/O ratio, cloud-top pressure, and scattering slope. It also has less commonly included features, such as a Mie scattering cloud model and unocculted starspot corrections. The code is available online at https://github.com/ideasrule/platon under the open-source GPL-3.0 license.
Additional Information
© 2019. The Astronomical Society of the Pacific. Received 2018 October 3; accepted 2018 December 1; published 2019 January 29. M.Z. acknowledges Plato (Greek:ΠΛATΩN) for his insightful philosophy and his contribution to the package's name. We thank Carlos E. Munoz for generating high-resolution opacity data in a format suitable for PLATON. We thank Jayesh Goyal for assistance in comparing PLATON to ATMO. Support for this work was provided by HST GO programs 13431, 13665, and 14260. Software: numpy, scipy, matplotlib, emcee, nestle, corner, nose, Travis CI.Attached Files
Accepted Version - 1811.11761
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 92535
- DOI
- 10.1088/1538-3873/aaf5ad
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190130-162009928
- NASA
- HST GO 13431
- NASA
- HST GO 13665
- NASA
- HST GO 14260
- Created
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2019-01-31Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Astronomy Department, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)