Romain Allart

Trottier Postdoctoral Fellow, Université de Montréal

Romain Allart is a Trottier postdoctoral fellow at iREx. His area of expertise is the study of exoplanet atmospheres. He is particularly interested in their observations at high spectral resolution with instruments such as ESPRESSO, NIRPS, and SPIRou. Thanks to his expertise with visible and near-infrared spectrographs, Romain provides support to the exploitation of the NIRPS data both on their extraction and reduction as well as to their scientific analysis. In addition, he coordinates the NIRPS consortium activities for the observation of exoplanets’ atmospheres totalizing 225 nights over the next 5 years. One of the most important observation programs in the world.

At UdeM, Romain is diversifying his field of expertise by combining high-resolution observations with low-resolution observations from the James Webb Space Telescope. The study of different atmospheric tracers at different spectral resolutions allows astronomers to have a global but also a more precise view of the composition and structure of exoplanets’ atmospheres leading to a better understanding of their formation and evolution.

Romain Allart obtained his Ph.D. at the University of Geneva in 2020. During his thesis, he used the transmission spectroscopy technique to study the atmospheric structure of exoplanets through different atomic and molecular species. On one hand, he showed the potential of the helium triplet in the near-infrared as a tracer of the upper atmosphere. On the other hand, by searching for the presence of water vapors in the visible with the ESPRESSO spectrograph, he was able to constrain the altitude of clouds in the atmosphere of exoplanets by combining high-resolution data with low-resolution data from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Romain is a member of the iREx Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Committee and contributes to the dissemination of Astronomy in Montreal through iREx events and Astronomy on Tap.

Romain Allart
Trottier Postdoctoral Fellow, Université de Montréal