TauREx3 PhaseCurve: A 1.5D Model for Phase-curve Description

In recent years, retrieval analysis of exoplanet atmospheres have been very successful, providing deep insights on the composition and the temperature structure of these worlds via transit and eclipse methods. Analysis of spectral phase-curve observations, which in theory provide even more information, are still limited to a few planets. In the next decade, new facilities such as NASA-James Webb Space Telescope and ESA-Ariel will revolutionize the field of exoplanet atmospheres and we expect that a significant time will be spent on spectral phase-curve observations. Most current models are still limited in their analysis of phase-curve data as they do not consider the planet atmosphere as a whole or they require large computational resources. In this paper we present a semi-analytical model that will allow computing exoplanet emission spectra at different phase angles. Our model provides a way to simulate a large number of observations while being only about four times slower than the traditional forward model for plane-parallel primary eclipse. This model, which is based on the newly developed TauREx 3 framework, will be further developed to allow for phase-curve atmospheric retrievals.