PICASO 3.0: A One-dimensional Climate Model for Giant Planets and Brown Dwarfs

Upcoming James Webb Space Telescope observations will allow us to study exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres in great detail. The physical interpretation of these upcoming high signal-to-noise observations requires precise atmospheric models of exoplanets and brown dwarfs. While several 1D and 3D atmospheric models have been developed in the past three decades, these models have often relied on simplified assumptions like chemical equilibrium and are also often not open-source, which limits their usage and development by the wider community. We present a Python-based 1Dl atmospheric radiative-convective equilibrium (RCE) model. This model has heritage from the Fortran-based code, which has been widely used to model the atmospheres of solar system objects, brown dwarfs, and exoplanets. In short, the basic capability of the original model is to compute the atmospheric state of the object under RCE given its effective or internal temperature, gravity, and host-star properties (if relevant). In the new model, which has been included within the well-utilized code-base PICASO, we have added these original features as well as the new capability of self-consistently treating disequilibrium chemistry. This code is widely applicable to hydrogen-dominated atmospheres (e.g., brown dwarfs and giant planets).

Automated summary

Upcoming observations from the James Webb Space Telescope will enable detailed study of exoplanet and brown dwarf atmospheres. To interpret these observations, accurate atmospheric models are needed, which have often relied on simplified assumptions and are not open-source. A new Python-based 1D atmospheric model has been developed, based on a widely used Fortran-based code, with the added capability of self-consistently treating disequilibrium chemistry. This model is applicable to hydrogen-dominated atmospheres such as brown dwarfs and giant planets.