Water in planetary and cometary atmospheres: H2O/HDO transmittance and fluorescence models

We developed a modern methodology to retrieve water (H₂O) and deuterated water (HDO) in planetary and cometary atmospheres, and constructed an accurate spectral database that combines theoretical and empirical results. On the basis of a greatly expanded set of spectroscopic parameters, we built a full non-resonance cascade fluorescence model and computed fluorescence efficiencies for H₂O (500 million lines) and HDO (700 million lines). The new line list was also integrated into an advanced terrestrial radiative transfer code (LBLRTM) and adapted to the CO₂ rich atmosphere of Mars, for which we adopted the complex Robert–Bonamy formalism for line shapes. We retrieved water and D/H in the atmospheres of Mars, comet C/2007 W1 (Boattini), and Earth by applying the new formalism to spectra obtained with the high-resolution spectrograph NIRSPEC/Keck II atop Mauna Kea (Hawaii). The new model accurately describes the complex morphology of the water bands and greatly increases the accuracy of the retrieved abundances (and the D/H ratio in water) with respect to previously available models. The new model provides improved agreement of predicted and measured intensities for many H₂O lines already identified in comets, and it identifies several unassigned cometary emission lines as new emission lines of H₂O. The improved spectral accuracy permits retrieval of more accurate rotational temperatures and production rates for cometary water.