Forward modelling and retrievals with PLATON, a fast open source tool

Abstract: We introduce PLanetary Atmospheric Transmission for Observer Noobs (PLATON), a Python package that calculates transmission spectra for exoplanets and retrieves atmospheric characteristics based on observed spectra. PLATON is easy to install and use, with common use cases taking no more than a few lines of code. It is also fast, with the forward model taking much less than one second and a typical retrieval finishing in minutes on an ordinary desktop. PLATON supports the most common atmospheric parameters, such as temperature, metallicity, C/O ratio, cloud-top pressure, and scattering slope. It also has less commonly included features, such as a Mie scattering cloud model and unocculted starspot corrections. The code is available online at https://github.com/ideasrule/platon under the open source GPL-3.0 license.