Modeling the 3D Emission Spectra and Phase Curves of Hot Jupiter WASP-43b

We calculate 3D spectra and phase-resolved emission for the hot Jupiter WASP-43b considering atmospheric dynamics and clouds by using a suite of atmospheric codes. We first use the 3D pressure, temperature and eddy diffusion profiles from the SPARC/MITgcm, a 3D general circulation model (GCM), as inputs to Virga, a phase equilibrium code that computes the optical depth and scattering properties of condensate clouds on hot Jupiters. With Virga, we calculate 3D cloud profiles with different sedimentation efficiencies. Together, we use WASP-43b's thermal structure and cloud properties to simulate spectra using PICASO, a radiative transfer code. We also compute cloud-free spectra for testing and comparison purposes. We will build upon the framework of PICASO by developing a function that calculates a planet's phase-resolved emission (i.e., phase curves) in thermal emission. In this way, we can compare our simulated phase curves of WASP-43b to observations from Spitzer and HST. Finally, we will make predictions for future phase-curve observations of WASP-43b using JWST.