Litcius/Paper detail

The Sonora Substellar Atmosphere Models. V. A Correction to the Disequilibrium Abundance of CO<sub>2</sub> for Sonora Elf Owl

Nicholas F. Wogan, James Mang, Natasha E. Batalha, Kevin Zahnle, Sagnick Mukherjee, Channon Visscher, Jonathan J. Fortney, Mark S. Marley, Caroline Morley

2025Research Notes of the AAS16 citationsDOIOpen Access PDF

Abstract

Abstract To aid the interpretation of observations of substellar atmospheres, S. Mukherjee et al. created the Sonora Elf Owl grid of model atmospheres, simulations that accounted for disequilibrium quench chemistry. However, Sonora Elf Owl did not accurately estimate CO 2 quenching because the models quenched the gas with respect to the full atmosphere equilibrium, but CO 2 should have instead been quenched with respect to the disequilibrium (i.e., quenched) abundance of CO. As a result, Sonora Elf Owl under-predicted the CO 2 abundance by several order of magnitude in some instances, an amount that JWST is sensitive to. Here, we release version two of the Sonora Elf Owl grid which has corrected CO 2 concentrations. Additionally, in version two we remove PH 3 as a spectral contributor since our spectra consistently contained too much PH 3 absorption. The new spectra can be found as an update to the original Zenodo postings.

Topics & Concepts

DisequilibriumAtmosphere (unit)Abundance (ecology)AstrobiologyEnvironmental scienceAtmospheric sciencesGeographyGeologyMeteorologyEcologyPhysicsBiologyMedicineOphthalmologyAstrophysics and Star Formation StudiesScientific Research and DiscoveriesAtmospheric Ozone and Climate