Published January 2025 | Published
Journal Article Open

Retrievals on NIRCam Transmission and Emission Spectra of HD 189733b with PLATON 6, a GPU Code for the JWST Era

  • 1. ROR icon University of Chicago
  • 2. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 3. ROR icon McGill University
  • 4. ROR icon University of Montreal
  • 5. ROR icon Ames Research Center
  • 6. ROR icon Cornell University
  • 7. ROR icon University of Maryland, College Park

Abstract

We present the 2.4–5.0 μm JWST/NIRCam emission spectrum of HD 189733b, along with an independent re-reduction of the previously published transmission spectrum at the same wavelengths. We use an upgraded version of PLanetary Atmospheric Tool for Observer Noobs (PLATON) to retrieve atmospheric parameters from both geometries. In transit, we obtain [M/H] = 0.53^(+0.13)_(-0.12) and C/O = 0.41^(+0.13)_(-0.12), assuming a power-law haze and equilibrium chemistry with methane depletion. In eclipse, we obtain [M/H] = 0.68^(+0.15)_(-0.11) and C/O = 0.43^(+0.06)_(-0.05), assuming a clear atmosphere and equilibrium chemistry without methane depletion. These results are consistent with each other, and with a rerun of our previously published joint retrieval of Hubble Space Telescope and Spitzer transmission and emission spectra. Accounting for methane depletion decreases the C/O ratio by 0.14/0.04 (transmission/emission), but changing the limb cloud parameterization does not affect the C/O ratio by more than 0.06. We detect H2O, CO2, CO, and H2S in both the NIRCam transmission and emission spectra, find that methane is depleted on the terminator, and confirm with VULCAN that photochemistry is a potential cause of this depletion. We also find tentative (1.8σ) evidence of a dayside thermal inversion at millibar pressures. Finally, we take this opportunity to introduce a new version of PLATON. PLATON 6 supports GPU computation, speeding up the code up to 10×. It also supports free retrievals using both volume mixing ratio and centered-log ratio priors; emission from planetary surfaces of different compositions; updated opacities at improved resolution; and Pareto smoothed importance sampling leave-one-out cross-validation.

Copyright and License

© 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.

Acknowledgement

We thank Heather Knutson and Eliza Kempton for valuable discussions, and for their contributions to earlier versions of PLATON. M.Z. thanks the Heising-Simons Foundation for funding his 51 Pegasi b fellowship. Computation for this project was performed on University of Chicago’s Midway 3 cluster and Caltech’s High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and funded through the President’s and Director’s Research & Development Fund Program.

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Additional details

Created:
September 23, 2025
Modified:
September 25, 2025