A web-based, fully flexible tool to model the atmospheres of exoplanets and predict their spectral features
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EPACRIS is a new way of modeling exoplanet atmospheres. Fully web-based, EPACRIS allows you to design your own models easily and explore your own parameter space efficiently. You can create input files and store them in your account for use in multiple model scenarios. Your simulation will be performed at the backend and you can monitor the progress. Once a solution is found, EPACRIS will deliver the solution to you both graphically and as machine-readable data files.
EPACRIS will be released in multiple phases.
The current version of EPACRIS allows you to compute the temperature-pressure profile and the molecular composition of a massive atmosphere, based on its elemental abundance. EPACRIS currently calculates the molecular composition in thermochemical equilibrium. EPACRIS is capable of simulating both H-rich and H-poor atmospheres. This application allows quickly determining possible atmospheric scenarios of an exoplanet ranging from gas giants to super-Earths.
EPACRIS is a tool to compute the temperature-pressure profile and the chemical composition of exoplanet atmospheres, based on fundamental principles and user-specified initial and boundary conditions. EPACRIS has the capability of simulating massive atmospheres of gas giant planets, thin atmospheres of terrestrial planets (e.g., Earth, Mars) and exoplanets, and intermediate atmospheres of super-Earths and sub-Neptunes, the most populous type of planets in the Galaxy.
EPACRIS is a state-of-the-art atmospheric chemistry and radiative transfer model for exoplanet atmospheres based on fundamental principles. The model computes the temperature-pressure profile by balancing the radiation energy budget layer by layer, and the atmospheric composition by tracing thousands of chemical and photochemical reactions of hundreds of species. The model also computes the spectra of the atmosphere in transit, thermal emission, and the reflected light with a multi-stream, line-by-line radiative transfer method.
A unique feature of EPACRIS is that it does not require a priori specification of the main molecule of the atmosphere; instead, the model can take the elemental abundance as an input parameter. Another feature of EPACRIS is that it allows flexible boundary conditions, including thermochemical equilibrium, constant density, and constant flux lower boundary conditions. With advanced numerical procedures, EPACRIS does not require fine tuned initial conditions to find steady-state solutions. These features make EPACRIS a general modeling tool applicable for simulating planetary atmospheres ranging from massive to tenuous, and H2-dominated and non-H2-dominated.
The following papers describe the fundamental principles, numerical procedures, and example applications of EPACRIS.