Analytic Scattering and Refraction Models for Exoplanet Transit Spectra

TL;DR

This paper introduces analytic models for refraction and scattering in exoplanet transit spectra, enabling efficient analysis of atmospheric properties and addressing biases caused by neglecting these effects.

Contribution

It develops and validates analytic expressions for refraction and forward scattering effects, facilitating their inclusion in transit spectrum analysis tools.

Findings

Analytic correction for forward scattering improves spectrum modeling.

Refractive boundary location can be expressed in terms of maximum pressure.

Refraction effects are less significant than Rayleigh scattering above 400-500 K.

Abstract

Observations of exoplanet transit spectra are essential to understanding the physics and chemistry of distant worlds. The effects of opacity sources and many physical processes combine to set the shape of a transit spectrum. Two such key processes - refraction and cloud and/or haze forward scattering - have seen substantial recent study. However, models of these processes are typically complex, which prevents their incorporation into observational analyses and standard transit spectrum tools. In this work, we develop analytic expressions that allow for the efficient parameterization of forward scattering and refraction effects in transit spectra. We derive an effective slant optical depth that includes a correction for forward scattered light, and present an analytic form of this correction. We validate our correction against a full-physics transit spectrum model that includes scattering, and we explore the extent to which the omission of forward scattering effects may bias models. Also, we verify a common analytic expression for the location of a refractive boundary, which we express in terms of the maximum pressure probed in a transit spectrum. This expression is designed to be easily incorporated into existing tools, and we discuss how the detection of a refractive boundary could help indicate the background atmospheric composition by constraining the bulk refractivity of the atmosphere. Finally, we show that opacity from Rayleigh scattering and collision induced absorption will outweigh the effects of refraction for Jupiter-like atmospheres whose equilibrium temperatures are above 400-500 K.