Polarimetry can help us search for life, better understand the atmospheres of stars, brown dwarfs, exoplanets, and moons, and help us disentangle degenerate scenarios on unresolved worlds. In particular, polarimetry is well-suited to characterize clouds and condensates (their species, droplet size/morphology, depth in atmosphere), chirality (in Solar System objects), and to mapping unresolved objects (like the spots on a star or the continents on a terrestrial world). My graduate work was in applying polarimetry and highly capable line-by-line radiative transfer code to hot Jupiters (and our Solar System’s ice giant Uranus). I was part Jeremy Bailey’s Polarimetry and Atmospheres group at UNSW, and aided in the build and commissioning of the most precise polarimeter in the world: HIPPI, an aperture polarimeter, now part of a series of highly sensitive aperture and imaging polarimeters.
The HiPPI commissioning team in the AAT control room. L-to-R: Jeremy Bailey, Lucyna Kedziora-Chudczer, Daniel Cotton, Kim Bott
I have worked extensively on the characterization of hot Jupiters in the past, combining polarized line-by-line models and high precision observations [non-detection from HD 189733b] [WASP-18b is not hazy] [a possible first detection].
At the Virtual Planetary Laboratory (with Vikki Meadows) I extended polarized light theory towards smaller worlds, assessing the practicality of using polarimetry to characterize terrestrial worlds. I’ve also been working to improve polarized light modeling treatments to be better suited to small worlds [VSTAR polarimetry] [Earthshine DAP-VSTAR validations].