During my master’s degree at the University of Warwick, my research project focussed on the use of ground-based, high resolution spectroscopy (HRS) to study exoplanet atmospheres. Specifically, our study looked at the detection of water in the atmosphere of Tau Boötis b as various previous publications had disputed the claim of water on this target. We analysed the methods used for detrending the data and investigated the use of principal component analysis (PCA) to try and improve the strength of the molecular signature.
Following on from this, my PhD research still focusses on the study of exoplanet atmospheres and the data reduction and analysis pipelines common in the field. However, I now look at space-based data at much lower resolution. This technique is complimentary to HRS and presents its own challenges. We use atmospheric retrievals to try and find the most probable parameters contributing to the planet’s atmosphere. These results are dependent on many assumptions and decisions made in the data processing pipeline and my research tests the sensitivity of our results to these decisions. This work is motivated by the recent release of the first James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) transmission spectra of exoplanets and tries to learn the best practice that can be used for the Ariel space telescope (set to launch in 2029).