Research Interests - SSI Center for Extrasolar Planetary Systems

Dr. Michael J. Wolff
SSI Senior Research Scientist

Dr. Michael (Mike) Wolff is an astronomer whose research relates to the interaction of electromagnetic radiation with solid material (dust, aerosols) and gas in environments which range from planetary atmospheres to the interstellar medium.  His current work focuses on the "retrieval" or characterization of the physical properties from such environments, as well as on the detailed calculation of the radiative properties of dust and aerosol particles.

His current research related to CEPS focuses on the development and the use of radiative transfer (RT) tools to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets, with a particular emphasis on molecular opacity and aerosol radiative properties.  He currently employs several RT algorithms -- including discrete ordinates, successive order of scattering, and monte carlo -- to produce the so-called "forward models"  that are compared to observations in order to determine or constrain the desired atmospheric properties.  Although a solution of the formal inverse problem is generally not (yet) well supported by the available exoplanet observations, it is clear that the community would benefit from the availability of more public domain RT tools that go beyond the standard transmittance approach.  As such, his near-term goal is to offer robust RT subroutines and stand-alone routines to enable others to investigate into the dynamical and chemical nature of exoplanet atmospheres and their circumstellar environments.