Astrophysics, abstract
astro-ph/0607211

From: Adam Burrows [view email]

Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:12:32 GMT (944kb)

Atomic and Molecular Opacities for Brown Dwarf and Giant Planet Atmospheres

Authors: Christopher M. Sharp, Adam Burrows

Comments: 55 pages of text (in ApJ preprint format), plus 22 figures, submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

We present a comprehensive description of the theory and practice of opacity calculations from the infrared to the ultraviolet needed to generate models of the atmospheres of brown dwarfs and extrasolar giant planets. Methods for using existing line lists and spectroscopic databases in disparate formats are presented and plots of the resulting absorptive opacities versus wavelength for the most important molecules and atoms at representative temperature/pressure points are provided. Electronic, ro-vibrational, bound-free, bound-bound, free-free, and collision-induced transitions and monochromatic opacities are derived, discussed, and analyzed. The species addressed include the alkali metals, iron, heavy metal oxides, metal hydrides, $H_2$, $H_2O$, $CH_4$, $CO$, $NH_3$, $H_2S$, $PH_3$, and representative grains. [Abridged]

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0607211