Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Madelyn Broome is part of the 2025 NASA ExoExplorers cohort, a program that aims to enable the professional development of graduate students and/or postdocs in exoplanet research (“ExoExplorers”).
The ExoExplorers program, sponsored by NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Office and the ExoPAG Executive Committee, will focus on the professional development of ~10 graduate student and/or postdoc researchers (“ExoExplorers”) at US and international institutions. Each member of the cohort will be featured in a webinar that will be live-streamed to the exoplanet community, helping to increase their visibility within the field and build internal and external research networks. The cohort will also learn from the experiences of established exoplanet researchers and engineers in the field (“ExoGuides”) via a combination of tailored presentations and small group discussions.
Title: Wind-AE, a fast 1D atmospheric escape model with X-rays and Metals
Abstract: Throughout their lives, short-period (less than 100 days) exoplanets are strongly irradiated by their host stars. Especially in the first few hundred megayears, photoionization by the young hot stars' strong XUV fluxes can drive transonic winds that outflow from these planets. The mass loss histories of these planets are essential to understanding the evolution and demographics of these populations; however, mass loss rates are not directly observable. They can only be inferred from models. To that end, we present, Wind-AE an open source 1D, multifrequency (thru to X-ray), multispecies, steady-state Parker Wind photoevaporation relaxation code based on Murray-Clay et al. (2009). The speed and reliability of the tool have allowed used in a number of investigations we will touch on including: exploring the impact of metallicity on mass loss rates; modeling observational limits of escaping H$\alpha$ on WASP-12b; constraining whether sub-Neptunes TOI 776b and c that span the period radius valley are water worlds; investigating the mystery of unusually large X-ray transits in HD189733b; and more.
Madelyn Broome is part of the 2025 NASA ExoExplorers cohort, a program that aims to enable the professional development of graduate students and/or postdocs in exoplanet research (“ExoExplorers”).
The ExoExplorers program, sponsored by NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program Office and the ExoPAG Executive Committee, will focus on the professional development of ~10 graduate student and/or postdoc researchers (“ExoExplorers”) at US and international institutions. Each member of the cohort will be featured in a webinar that will be live-streamed to the exoplanet community, helping to increase their visibility within the field and build internal and external research networks. The cohort will also learn from the experiences of established exoplanet researchers and engineers in the field (“ExoGuides”) via a combination of tailored presentations and small group discussions.
Title: Wind-AE, a fast 1D atmospheric escape model with X-rays and Metals
Abstract: Throughout their lives, short-period (less than 100 days) exoplanets are strongly irradiated by their host stars. Especially in the first few hundred megayears, photoionization by the young hot stars' strong XUV fluxes can drive transonic winds that outflow from these planets. The mass loss histories of these planets are essential to understanding the evolution and demographics of these populations; however, mass loss rates are not directly observable. They can only be inferred from models. To that end, we present, Wind-AE an open source 1D, multifrequency (thru to X-ray), multispecies, steady-state Parker Wind photoevaporation relaxation code based on Murray-Clay et al. (2009). The speed and reliability of the tool have allowed used in a number of investigations we will touch on including: exploring the impact of metallicity on mass loss rates; modeling observational limits of escaping H$\alpha$ on WASP-12b; constraining whether sub-Neptunes TOI 776b and c that span the period radius valley are water worlds; investigating the mystery of unusually large X-ray transits in HD189733b; and more.
